Mooney: Unlearning what the pandemic taught us
By Terry Murry on Tuesday, September 17th, 2024 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
HERMISTON – Umatilla County is working on an initiative to encourage parents to send their children to school. Throughout Oregon, educators have become alarmed with the number of parents who are not requiring their children to return to school.
Hermiston School Superintendent Tricia Mooney said it’s a matter of re-educating parents about the importance of school as it’s estimated that 35,000 Oregon children did not return to school after the pandemic.
“We taught isolation,” she said. “We taught students to work independently. We taught people to not show up. Now we need to unlearn that.”
Mooney credited county officials and InterMountain Education Service District Superintendent Mark Mulvihill for taking a role in this, as September is School Attendance Awareness Month.
“We know that kids that are in school have an increased opportunity to learn,” she said. “They achieve at a higher level. We connect with those students at a higher level. We are able to head off other problems, if you will, that are potentially happening.
