Nevada’s Clark County School District Accelerates Students’ Return Due to Increase in Suicides

Nevada’s Clark County School District has accelerated its plans to bring back international students and resume in-person learning, after an increase in the number of students’ suicides.

A total of 326,000 students are so far enrolled at Nevada’s Clark County School District, making it the fifth-largest district in the United States, Erudera reports. Since March last year, these students have been holding classes remotely.

Following the events, a school official told CNN that within nine months there have been 19 suicides marked in the district, whereas one year earlier, there were only nine suicide registered.

According to data, between March 16 and June 30, six students died by suicide, while a total of 12 students died only during July 1 and December 31.

However, there isn’t yet any official information that the cause of suicides is linked with remote learning.

In the meantime, earlier this month, there was one more death registered, the district official told CNN on Monday.

As a result, during a meeting held on January 14, 2021, the Clark County Board of Trustees voted unanimously to return students for face-to-face lessons.

A district’s early warning system helps to keep an eye of students’ mental health. The latter has so far provided students over 4,300 virtual wellness checks and more than 1,400 in-person checks.

According to a report published by the district, since March 2020, the suicides protocols were issued 30 times. The same report also points out the stress that online learning has been causing students during their academic development, which states that 90,4 per cent of schools have given more Fs this year compared to a year before. Also, 77.2 per cent of schools gave more Ds this year than the previous year.

A group of researchers have alerted in October about the consequences that COVID-19 might have on an individual’s mental health, stating that the second wave of health issues increased suicides and deaths from drug overdoses.

Several teachers in the US have died after becoming infected with COVID-19, which is among the reasons why they have preferred to switch all classes to the online version.