As students returned to normal school schedules last year after nearly a year and a half of interrupted learning because of the pandemic, the academic growth of students was heavily focused on but now a new issue appears to be rearing its ugly head.

The social development of students was largely impacted by masks, distancing, and other in-school COVID protocols over the last three years. Superintendent of Bement Schools Mary Vogt explains she and her staff are noticing the impacts of all those mitigations.

Conflict resolution is an issue students are trying to learn, especially at the younger levels. Vogt says while students haven't had opportunities to learn some of these things in the school setting, she believes some parents are not setting good examples, especially on social media.

The issue is putting teachers into uncharted waters of how to teach kids skills they are accustomed to them already having. Vogt predicts it will take at least a decade for what she calls their 'COVID kids' to fully recover.

When posed the question if students who participate in sports or group-related extra-curricular activities are better adjusted than those who do not, she felt as though even those students were impacted by the COVID mitigations in a way that may have held them back a little bit.