Much attention in the post-pandemic era has been on what students have lost – days of school, psychological health, knowledge and skills. But now we have evidence that they may also have gained something: schools that address more of their needs. A majority of public schools have begun providing services that are far afield from traditional academics, including healthcare, housing assistance, childcare and food aid. 

In a Department of Education survey released in October 2023 of more than 1,300 public schools, 60 percent said they were partnering with community organizations to provide non-educational services. That’s up from 45 percent a year earlier in 2022, the first time the department surveyed schools about their involvement in these services. They include access to medical, dental, and mental health providers as well as social workers. Adult education is also often part of the package; the extras are not just for kids. 

“It is a shift,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, where she tracks school spending. “We’ve seen partnering with the YMCA and with health groups for medical services and psychological evaluations.”

Deeper involvement in the community started as an emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic. As schools shuttered their classrooms, many became hubs where families obtained food or internet access. Months later, many schools opened their doors to become vaccine centers. 

New community alliances were further fueled by more than $200 billion in federal pandemic recovery funds that have flowed to schools. “Schools have a lot of money now and they’re trying to spend it down,” said Roza. Federal regulations encourage schools to spend recovery funds on nonprofit community services, and unspent funds will eventually be forfeited.

The term “community school” generally refers to schools that provide a cluster of wraparound services under one roof. The hope is that students living in poverty will learn more if their basic needs are met. Schools that provide only one or two services are likely among the 60 percent of schools that said they were using a community school or wraparound services model, but they aren’t necessarily full-fledged community schools, Department of Education officials said.

The wording of the question on the federal School Pulse Panel survey administered in August 2023 allowed for a broad interpretation of what it means to be a community school. The question posed to a sample of schools across all 50 states was this: “Does your school use a “community school” or “wraparound services” model? A community school or wraparound services model is when a school partners with other government agencies and/or local nonprofits to support and engage with the local community (e.g., providing mental and physical health care, nutrition, housing assistance, etc.).” 

The most common service provided was mental health (66 percent of schools) followed by food assistance (55 percent). Less common were medical clinics and adult education, but many more schools said they were providing these services than in the past.

The number of full-fledged community schools is also believed to be growing, according to education officials and researchers. Federal funding for community schools tripled during the pandemic to $75 million in 2021-22 from $25 million in 2019-20. According to the  education department, the federal community schools program now serves more than 700,000 students in about 250 school districts, but there are additional state and private funding sources too. 

Whether it’s a good idea for most schools to expand their mission and adopt aspects of the community school model depends on one’s view of the purpose of school. Some argue that schools are taking on too many functions and should not attempt to create outposts for outside services. Others argue that strong community engagement is an important aspect of education and can improve daily attendance and learning. Research studies conducted before the pandemic have found that academic benefits from full-fledged community schools can take several years to materialize. It’s a big investment without an instant payoff.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear whether schools will continue to embrace their expanded mission after federal pandemic funds expire in March 2026. That’s when the last payments to contractors and outside organizations for services rendered can be made. Contracts must be signed by September 2024.

Edunomics’s Roza thinks many of these community services will be the first to go as schools face future budget cuts. But she also predicts that some will endure as schools raise money from state governments and philanthropies to continue popular programs.

If that happens, it will be an example of another unexpected consequence of the pandemic. Even as pundits decry how the pandemic has eroded support for public education, it may have profoundly transformed the role of schools and made them even more vital.

This story about wraparound services was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The journey to Boston was more than 1,500 miles. The plane ticket cost about $500. The hotel: another $400. She felt a little guilty about going, knowing that not everyone could afford this trip. But it was important; she was headed there to learn. 

So, Amrita Bhagia, a second-year medical student from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, caught that flight to Boston to attend a weekend workshop hosted by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. There, she joined medical students from around the country for a summit on abortion care. She learned about medication abortion, practiced the technique of vacuum aspiration using papayas as a stand-in for a uterus, and sat in on a workshop about physician’s rights. 

“It was the most empowering thing I could have imagined, especially coming from a state where people don’t want to talk about this stuff, ever,” said Bhagia, an aspiring OB-GYN at the University of South Dakota, a state where abortion is banned. “Other than me flying to Boston to go to an ACOG workshop, I have no idea how to get that training.” 

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer, access to abortion training was uneven. Medical schools are not required to offer instruction on it, and students’ experiences vary wildly based on their institution. 

But for Bhagia and med students like her in states where abortion has been banned or severely restricted, those training opportunities have gone from not great to nonexistent.

As a result of this insufficient gynecological training, experts warn, a generation of doctors will be ill-equipped to meet their patients’ needs. And across the country, maternal-care deserts will likely expand, as graduating medical students and residents avoid abortion-restricted states.

More than 30,000 medical students are training in states with abortion bans. Another 1,400 OB-GYN residents, who are required to receive abortion training as part of their specialty, are studying in states where abortion is banned or severely restricted. 

“There’s a concern that in states with these restrictions, students are simply not getting enough training and exposure,” said Jody Steinauer, an OB-GYN, medical educator and director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. “There’s really a worry that if this continues, you’re going to be training a large group of OB-GYNs who can’t provide patient-centered, evidence-based care, no matter where they practice.”

“I would love to stay in Texas and train. This is a fantastic institution and I want to serve this community. But if I can’t get the training I need, I will have to leave.”

Chelsea Romero, a third-year medical student at McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas

A related concern: Fewer medical students will choose to become OB-GYNs at all, fearing lawsuits or criminal prosecution. Figures show that OB-GYN residency applications are down across the country, but programs in states with abortion bans saw the biggest drops. Application rates for family medicine programs experienced a similar decline.

Abortion is currently banned in 14 states. All offer a narrow exception to this blanket prohibition when the mother’s life is at risk and a few of these states allow abortions in cases of rape or incest. But doctors say guidance on maternal health exceptions remains unclear, leaving physicians vulnerable to potential prosecution when treating patients.

“Students are seeing us struggle with this stuff and they’re like, ‘Yeah, why would I stay here for this?’” said Amy Kelley, a Sioux Falls OB-GYN and clinical associate professor at the University of South Dakota, a state where doctors can face up to two years in prison for violating the state’s ban.

These developments are particularly worrisome in South Dakota and other rural states that are already struggling to recruit and retain maternal healthcare providers. More than half of the state’s counties have no OB-GYNs, and rural South Dakotans with high-risk pregnancies often have no choice but travel to Sioux Falls for specialty care.

Limited access to maternal health care is reflected in troubling maternal mortality rates in abortion-restricted states across the country, where mothers are three times as likely to die due to their pregnancy, according to recent research. Barriers to abortion training could amplify physician shortages, increasing the number of maternal-care deserts and posing even greater risk to maternal health.

“We already have a physician shortage in this country,” said Pamela Merritt, a reproductive rights activist and director of Medical Students for Choice. “And we have the maternal health outcomes that come with that shortage. We have the worst pregnancy outcomes in the developed world. The last thing I want to see is people either having an insufficient education yet providing care, or people not even thinking of OB-GYN as a specialty in certain states.”

Although medical schools’ curricula vary, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires OB-GYN residency programs to provide access to abortion training. Residents with moral or religious objections are allowed to opt out. It’s a key component of an OB-GYN’s training, even for doctors who have no plans of becoming abortion providers.

An OB-GYN must be able to evacuate a uterus — whether the skill is used to care for a patient who’s had an incomplete miscarriage, to remove polyps for cancer diagnosis or assist someone who wants to terminate an unwanted pregnancy — and doctors-in-training can develop this ability through clinical abortion training. 

“Such training is directly relevant to preserving the life and health of the pregnant patient in some instances,” ACGME program requirements state.

Yet in states with abortion bans, direct access to that training has vanished. In the past year, program directors in those states have scrambled to find out-of-state training opportunities so their residents can fulfill OB-GYN program accreditation requirements. But identifying and coordinating those training opportunities is no small feat.

“A lot of programs are grappling with the logistics piece of partnering with another institution to send a resident somewhere else,” said Alyssa Colwill, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University, who directs the university’s OB-GYN Ryan Residency program. OHSU plans to host a dozen out-of-state learners for four- to six-week clinical rotations during this academic year. 

Programs like these require significant behind-the-scenes orchestration and space is limited. Visiting learners must apply for a medical license in their new state, complete required hospital training, take out new malpractice insurance, and secure housing and transportation.

More than half of South Dakota’s counties have no OB-GYNs; rural South Dakotans with high-risk pregnancies often have no choice but travel to Sioux Falls for specialty care.

In addition, programs in abortion-restricted states must often cope with the loss of a team member while residents travel for training.

“Programs really need their residents for services they provide,” said Colwill. “It’s not the easiest ask, to have a resident be gone from all clinical duties at their site for a month at a time.”

And while the overturn of Roe has had the most profound impact on residency programs, medical students who are not yet in a residency say they’re also feeling its effects. Doctors-in-training spend four years in medical school before beginning a residency in their chosen specialty.

“Bringing abortion up feels like a violation because it’s so taboo now,” said Bhagia. “I don’t know if I can even ask questions, and that’s impeding my learning.”

Chelsea Romero, a third-year medical student at McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas, where abortion is restricted, said she has never faced repercussions for discussing abortion, but the risk of consequences is always on her mind. 

“As a student, you’re being evaluated constantly, and these evaluations can dictate if you get residency interviews or not,” said Romero, who stressed she spoke only for herself and not as a representative of her university. “If I have those conversations with a wrong person in power, I could face blowback.” 

One year after Roe was overturned, this stifled learning environment appears to be having an influence on where medical students are applying to residencies. One recent survey of medical students found that 58 percent of those responding were unlikely to apply to a residency program in a state with abortion restrictions, regardless of their specialty. 

“I would love to stay in Texas and train. This is a fantastic institution and I want to serve this community,” said Romero. “But if I can’t get the training I need, I will have to leave.”

“Where you train is where you stay. It is rare that a resident will train in California and then move to rural South Dakota; it just doesn’t happen.”

Yalda Jabbarpour, a family physician and director of the Robert Graham Center, the American Academy of Family Physicians’ policy and research center

Decisions like hers will have ripple effects for the physician workforce in the coming years, said Yalda Jabbarpour, a family physician and director of the Robert Graham Center, the American Academy of Family Physicians’ policy and research center. “Where you train is where you stay,” she said. “It is rare that a resident will train in California and then move to rural South Dakota; it just doesn’t happen.”

That’s exactly what worries Erica Schipper, an OB-GYN in Sioux Falls.

South Dakota is one of only six states in the country without an OB-GYN residency program, which means medical students who want to become OB-GYNs must leave the state to receive their training. Schipper, who also teaches medical students at the USD Sanford School of Medicine, said the state’s abortion ban will make recruitment even harder. 

“When I look at some of the brightest, up-and-coming medical students who we’ve sent away for their residency, we’re hoping they’ll come back, but I suspect they’re thinking twice,” said Schipper. 

One of those students is Morgan Schriever, a Sioux Falls native and a graduate of USD’s Sanford School of Medicine. Schriever is a second-year OB-GYN resident at Southern Illinois University who said she always planned to return to her home state. But after training in Illinois, where abortion is protected, she’s having second thoughts. 

Schriever is not only concerned that she would be unable to provide elective abortions in her home state. She’s also worried that South Dakota’s restrictive law would impede her ability to provide medically necessary abortions when treating patients experiencing pregnancy loss.

“Being in practice in Illinois, I come across these scenarios where I picture myself in South Dakota and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. How would I have handled this?’ I’m just not sure I want to put myself in that position where essentially my license is on the line.”

“There’s really a worry that if this continues, you’re going to be training a large group of OB-GYNs who can’t provide patient-centered, evidence-based care, no matter where they practice.”

Jody Steinhauer, director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health

These latest recruitment challenges particularly affect states already grappling with an OB-GYN shortage and struggling to improve maternal health care.

“Abortion-restrictive states are the same states that are traditionally rural and have a really hard time attracting physicians,” said Jabbarpour, “so any decline in those states is troublesome.”

Heather Spies, an OB-GYN who trains family medicine and general surgeon residents at Sanford Health, a hospital system in Sioux Falls, said the Sanford system is ensuring its residents are trained in basic obstetrics and gynecology care, including labor and delivery and miscarriage care. Even with the state’s abortion ban in place, she said, doctors at Sanford are able to provide miscarriage care and treat most pregnancy complications. 

“I don’t think those learning experiences have changed because the procedures that we do at Sanford haven’t changed,” said Spies. 

Still, there are some healthcare needs that require specialty care, certain medical emergencies that demand the expertise of an OB-GYN. And as abortion bans undermine training and push OB-GYNs out of restricted states, public health experts say they’re worried maternal-care deserts across the country will grow even drier.

“In the dead of a South Dakota winter blizzard, if you can’t get that helicopter to where it needs to go and that mom and that baby are in danger, you’re much more likely to save those lives if you have a doctor nearby,” said Schipper.

This story about OBGYN training was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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There’s little consensus over the best way to teach children and teens about sexuality in this country and research provides scant guidance. Educational programs that directly target sexual behaviors and attitudes frequently fail to show reductions in unwanted pregnancies or sexually transmitted infections. 

The political debate over sex ed, meanwhile, is taking place against a perplexing public health backdrop. The teen pregnancy rate has plummeted over the past 30 years, while epidemics of sexually transmitted infections among younger Americans are showing no signs of slowing. The reasons for these divergent trends are unclear.

State data, by contrast, can sometimes look deceptively stark and clear. Consider Arkansas and Massachusetts. Arkansas, which requires abstinence to be emphasized in sex ed classes, has the highest rate of teen pregnancies in the country (30 out of 1,000 females ages 15 to 19). Massachusetts requires that sex ed be culturally appropriate and unbiased, without a mandated focus on abstinence. Its teen pregnancy rate is the lowest in the country (7 out of 1,000 female teens). 

It’s tempting to connect those dots and conclude that abstinence education increases teen pregnancies and a broad approach, including explanations of birth control, reduces them. But the demographic differences between Arkansas and Massachusetts are so great that the correlation between sex ed and unwanted teenage pregnancies could be spurious. Yet many sex ed advocates use this kind of correlational data to make their arguments.

To settle the matter, one would need to introduce a Massachusetts-style sex ed program in Arkansas and track pregnancy rates or launch an Arkansas-style abstinence program in a Massachusetts town, and see if pregnancy rates go up. No one has done either of these experiments. 

And that’s the crux of the problem. There have been so few well-designed studies that tell us if sex ed is helping, making things worse or doing nothing at all. Researchers would have to randomly assign preteens or teens to a sex ed class and then figure out how to monitor subsequent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Students don’t always disclose the truth about sex on surveys.

“It’s really challenging to do an evaluation of sex ed curriculum,” said Carolyn Tucker Halpern, chair of the department of maternal and child health at the Gillings School of Global Public Health of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  “Short of rummaging around in trash cans and looking for used condoms and stuff, it’s hard to get an objective measure.”

The most recent attempt to compile and summarize the best evidence for sex education was published in 2023 by a team of public health researchers from Dartmouth College. They aggregated the results of 29 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the United States between 1990 and 2021. Fewer than half of the studies of sex ed programs took place in schools. Nine of them emphasized abstinence, which means waiting until marriage to have sex. Just one study directly compared teaching abstinence only with a comprehensive approach. (It did not find any difference in frequency of condom use, its main outcome measure.)

Comprehensive sex education is a catchall term that includes everything that isn’t abstinence only – from birth control use and sexual consent to the reproductive system and sexually transmitted infections. Comprehensive programs may also include or even emphasize abstinence along with these other topics. Because the content of these classes varies, it’s hard to generalize about comprehensive sex or its effectiveness. (For more on current approaches to sex education, read this Hechinger Report story.)

Only seven studies in the Dartmouth meta-analysis attempted to track pregnancies, and of those, just three asked participants whether they or their partner had gotten pregnant a year or more later. 

The overall finding was ambiguous. Three comprehensive programs showed a moderate reduction in teenage pregnancies although the effect was not statistically significant. This means that there are too few studies for researchers to be confident; the results could be flukes and more studies are needed to confirm. (The largest of the three studies, by far, involved young men who were living in group homes operated by child welfare or juvenile justice, not indicative of typical teens.)

There was also no evidence that sex ed decreased the incidence of sexually transmitted infections. Only three studies in this 2023 meta-analysis tracked STIs (not the same as the ones that tracked pregnancies) and all three showed similar rates in both the treatment and control groups. It’s hard to make confident conclusions based on only three studies, but these results are not promising.

“There’s a shockingly low number of studies,” said Amy Bordogna, who led the research team that conducted this review, published in the American Journal of Sexuality Education.  “There needs to be more research.”

The 29 randomized controlled trials tended to show that students were practicing safer sex after participating in a sex ed program. On surveys, for example, boys said they were using a condom more often. In theory, increased condom use should be translating into lower pregnancy and STI rates. Either teens aren’t being truthful on surveys or the condoms aren’t being used correctly.

The rigorous research evidence is at odds with the research-based recommendations of many medical and health associations, including the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Other reviews have found that the evidence for “comprehensive” sex ed programs is more favorable. For example, a 2012 paper by 20 experts, led by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reviewed 66 studies of group-based “comprehensive risk reduction” programs and concluded that, on average, they were effective in reducing pregnancies and STIs, while the results of 23 studies of group-based abstinence programs were inconsistent. Many of the underlying studies included in these broader research reviews weren’t randomized controlled trials and were of lower quality. 

Advocates on both sides of the debate tend to overstate their cases. There’s little evidence that sex education encourages sexual activity or promiscuity, but there’s also not strong evidence that comprehensive sex ed programs reduce pregnancies and infections. 

There’s also little evidence that abstinence-only approaches backfire, as some suggest, and lead to higher rates of pregnancies and infections. A 2008 study of four abstinence-only programs found no increase in the risk of adolescent pregnancy, STIs, or the rates of adolescent sexual activity compared with students in a control group.

The international evidence isn’t much better. A Cochrane review published in 2016 aggregated the results of randomized control trials that took place in schools in Europe, Latin America and Africa. The review had a higher bar for study quality; there had to be some clinical measure of pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections beyond what students voluntarily disclosed. It found no evidence that school-based sex ed programs by themselves reduced pregnancies, HIV or other sexually transmitted infections after reviewing eight randomized controlled trials covering 55,000 students. 

One takeaway from the lead researcher, Amanda Mason-Jones from the University of York in England, is that a curriculum alone, unaccompanied by freely available birth control, isn’t terribly effective. 

The most effective way to reduce pregnancies had nothing to do with sex ed classes. Financial incentives, such as free uniforms or small cash payments to keep girls in school, led to a significant reduction in teen pregnancies. One of these studies also documented a reduction in infections. That suggests that education itself might be the strongest form of birth control.  

Sarah Butrymowicz contributed reporting to this story.

This story about sex education statistics was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

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Climate change has been driven by human behavior. That’s why long-term success in halting it must involve large-scale changes in how we live.

Most of the behaviors we associate with preventing climate change are totally inaccessible to younger children. They can’t buy electric cars or redirect their retirement accounts away from fossil fuels.

They can’t even vote.

Limiting our kids by only offering them these types of solutions can leave them with a sense of powerlessness and futility. But there is a solution within their power, and that’s taking control of how and what they eat.

Making the connection between food and climate change could reap huge benefits for our children — and for all of us. As more states and cities officially integrate climate change education into their school curricula, we urge them to include discussion of food systems and personal eating habits as essential parts of the climate story.

The role of food systems in climate change is often ignored, as discussions tend to focus on energy production (wind turbines) and transportation (electric cars).

Yet food is a huge part of our global economy and must also be a huge part of any potential climate solution. Food waste in particular is an area of massive concern: The energy that goes into producing food that is wasted is the equivalent of 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. By comparison, all air travel and transport globally added a little over 1 billion tons of CO2 at its 2019 pre-pandemic peak.

Most of the behaviors we associate with preventing climate change are totally inaccessible to younger children. They can’t buy electric cars or redirect their retirement accounts away from fossil fuels.

Thus, encouraging more plant-based (and less-processed) foods and reducing food waste are two of the most effective approaches we have for addressing climate change, according to Project Drawdown, one of the most comprehensive studies on potential climate solutions. Combined, they could reduce greenhouse gas emissions almost 22 times more than the switch to electric cars.

Involving children in this discussion could be an important part of building a sustainable future, especially as more states and cities officially integrate climate change into their teaching, as New Jersey has. Food is far more tangible to children than discussions of better building insulation or renewable power generation, which are both invisible on a daily basis and entirely outside a child’s control.

Better nutrition education — including promotion of better lifelong health — is badly needed in our schools for many reasons anyway.

Younger people are more open to this than adults who are set in their ways. About 65 percent of today’s children and teens “find plant-forward eating appealing and 79 percent would go meatless, one to two times a week now or in the future,” according to a study from food services company Aramark.

Related: One state mandates teaching climate change in almost all subjects – even PE

We’ve started working out how to bring all of this information to kids in New Jersey’s classrooms. As part of our work for Rutgers University’s Department of Family & Community Health Sciences and the New Jersey Healthy Kids Initiative, we’ve been piloting lesson plans that present information on both food waste and plant-based eating.

We’re teaching kids how a bean burrito can be healthier and have less of an impact on the environment than a meat taco — and be delicious. And why a piece of fresh fruit is a climate-friendly snack because highly processed snacks like flavored chips take so much energy to produce.

These lessons take students through the basic science, describe food systems from initial farming through composting of waste and every step in between, and tie all the concepts back to climate change and empowering kids with action steps that can make an impact.

These are interactive, hands-on curricula. For example, we’ve created a video game in which the central challenge is finding a way to produce food for an entire community given limited space and resources. Kids quickly learn the true nutrient values of plants vs. livestock and the costs that go into producing each.

We’re not telling kids to avoid animal foods completely, and we’re careful to discourage judgment — we will gain nothing by asking children to lecture their parents. But we are teaching students that they can be part of the climate solution, showing them the personal and global benefits of eating mostly plants and encouraging them to avoid peer pressure and marketing campaigns that discourage healthy eating.

Related: COLUMN: The world is waking up to education’s essential role in climate solutions

When we talk about these issues with students, we see an immediate response. When we do food waste audits at schools to help them figure out how much food they’re throwing away, students come forward nearly every time, asking questions and offering to help find solutions.

They recognize the importance of this issue and, in many schools, they’re the ones pushing for change. Some students have self-organized to start “share tables” in their cafeterias on which they put unopened food items to be consumed by other students or donated to local food banks.

We’ve also been careful to work closely with teachers to develop lesson plans that meet, and integrate easily, into national and multistate standards for science curriculum. When we complete our pilots, we plan to start releasing the lesson plans as open-source tools available to schools nationwide.

We feel real hope for change when we work with our children. And engaging with them on the climate benefits of sustainable food choices can give them real hope too.

Sara Elnakib is chair of the Department of Family & Community Health Sciences at Rutgers University and research associate with the New Jersey Healthy Kids Initiative.

Jennifer Shukaitis is an assistant professor and educator at the Department of Family & Community Health Sciences at Rutgers University’s Cooperative Extension.

This story about climate change education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Early Childhood newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Wednesday with trends and top stories about early learning. Subscribe today!

Recess is a critical time for children, a time for play that can benefit both their behavior and academics. But it isn’t joyful for all children. Without the right oversight and planning, recess can be stressful for some kids, especially for those who are shy, anxious or targeted by bullying. 

“Students may come back from recess feeling dissatisfied … feeling excluded,” said Rebecca London, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the author of the book “Rethinking Recess,” when I interviewed her for a story about recess last year. “We can’t just say, ‘Throw everyone out in the rec yard with a couple of balls’…There has to be an intentionality as to how we set our recess up to serve the needs of children.”

Research backs this up: The quality of the recess experience, including the availability and inclusivity of games, adult engagement and students’ ability to resolve conflict, are essential factors in making recess a positive experience for all children.

At The Hechinger Report, we’ve spent the last year reporting on the importance of recess and play. But how can schools make sure their recess time is fun for all? For guidance, I reached out to Laura Medina Quintanar, executive director of the Northern California region for the nonprofit Playworks. The organization has worked with more than 3,500 schools nationwide to improve safety, engagement and inclusion during recess. Here are three things schools can do to make sure all kids reap the benefits of that play time:

1. Create some light structure to recess: At schools that work with Playworks, recess includes formal games, like “blob tag” or the “bullfrog game,” led by a coach or an older student, as well as free play. The presence of structured games can help students feel they have options at the playground, especially if they aren’t sure where they fit in during recess. “We’re not forcing kids to play, it’s not rigid,” Medina Quintanar said. “It’s more about focusing on creating opportunities for students to jump in, and feel safe jumping in.” Coaches also focus on building a culture of positive language during these games, saying things like “good job” and “nice try” instead of “you’re out” or more punitive terms.

2. Build a repertoire of school-wide games and teach students those rules: Beyond recess, classes at Playworks schools take time to go outside and learn new games during the week, many of which are available through the nonprofit’s online game library. While this time serves as a brain break for kids, it also ensures kids have plenty of ideas for play at recess. “That’s a tangible tool that we know diminishes the chaos or lack of organization,” Medina Quintanar said. Even if a coach is not there to lead them, once students learn a game, and they all know how to play it, they can get together on their own to start the game. “When your first grader goes out to recess, they’re already familiar with it and feel more comfortable jumping in,” Medina Quintanar said. Teaching the rules of the games in advance also eases the load of teachers who might otherwise be asked to facilitate every game.

When I spoke to Rebecca London, the UC sociology professor, last year, she also encouraged schools to create a set of school rules for recess games. Rules can “mitigate that tension around that game,” London said, so kids don’t spend time fighting about how to play. 

3. Encourage student leadership at recess: Playworks encourages older students, called “junior coaches,” to lead games with younger children. Many of the students selected as coaches haven’t had leadership roles before or might not be naturally inclined to lead others. “A big piece of this is empowering students,” said Medina Quintanar, so that they feel comfortable organizing games with each other and encouraging other students to jump in and play. While not all schools have equipment like balls and hula hoops, motivating students to take ownership of available materials can help give kids purpose and build leadership skills and confidence around play time, she added. Playworks encourages students to bring materials out to the playground and then collect items when play time is over.

Providing kids a positive recess experience is not always easy. It takes time and willpower to set up recess so it is an inclusive, productive time for students. School officials and educators may need to shift their mindset around recess to recognize the value of play, Medina Quintanar said. “It’s really important that [recess] is not overlooked,” she said. “It’s not just releasing kids into the yard and they fend for themselves until it’s time to come back,” she added. “Everyone benefits when students have a positive recess experience.”

This story about recess problems was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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When I went off to Boston College nearly four years ago, I envisioned making new friends, having new adventures and starting a new life. What I didn’t anticipate was loneliness, anxiety and the sense that I didn’t belong at one of the country’s top universities.

College was supposed to be great. So, why did I feel so low all the time?

My mental health struggles became so acute that I no longer cared if I got out of bed, went to class or changed my clothes. But I reached out for help from my peers. That made all the difference.

As it turned out, I wasn’t alone. The nation’s college campuses are experiencing a mental health crisis. According to a new Healthy Minds paper, 60 percent of college students reported symptoms of one or more mental health problems in 2020-21. That’s up nearly 50 percent since 2013.

A new report from the American College Health Association found that three-fourths of students said they were experiencing moderate or severe psychological distress. Slightly more than half reported feelings of loneliness.

The pandemic has had an enormous impact. The interrupted semester, the move to online learning and constant worries about health — your own and everyone else’s — put an enormous strain on college students nationwide.

In my own case, I knew something was deeply wrong shortly after I arrived on campus for my first year. I initially figured I was just homesick; Boston is 1,500 miles away from my home in South Florida.

It was hard to admit that it was anything more. In Hispanic communities like the one I grew up in, mental health is rarely discussed. When things get bad, feelings are diminished or dismissed. You’re supposed to suck it up and carry on.

When the pandemic interrupted my freshman year, I returned home, attended class virtually, and cared for my parents, both of whom got Covid. In a panic, while my mom was in the ICU, I applied for a college scholarship I hoped would relieve some of our family’s financial burdens.

I have come so far since those dark days alone in my dorm room. I got here with a lot of help from my friends — and by giving a lot of help to my peers.

I returned to Boston for my sophomore year, and all the problems I had been experiencing — isolation, anxiety, depression — were exacerbated. By then, however, I had made friends with other students of color, and I reached out to them for support.

We talked about what it was like to be a minority student at a predominantly white university. We shared what we were going through, how we felt out of place in class, in our dorms and while walking around campus. I had a huge revelation: Other students felt exactly the same way I did. I was not alone.

I didn’t know it at the time, but peer-to-peer support is popular and effective. One in five college students have used it. It’s a critical resource for minority and first-generation college students. There’s a ton of research that suggests peer support programs really work.

My college friends gave me the confidence to seek professional help from Boston College’s mental health resources. In just a couple of months I went from knowing nothing about my own mental health to being diagnosed with and treated for generalized anxiety, depression and other issues.

It saved my life.

Since then, I have been very open about my own mental health issues. I have become a peer leader on campus to help other students not feel so helpless. I’ve learned a lot about myself and others throughout the peer support process.

I’ve learned that asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness — it’s a sign of strength. It takes a strong person to be aware of their own shortcomings, and it doesn’t make them any less of a person for reaching out. I’ve learned that by acknowledging your mental health issues you are better able to regulate your emotions.

I’ve learned that while everyone has different values and perspectives, you shouldn’t feel less willing to help them. I’ve learned how to reach out to people and communicate and how to be empathetic. I’ve learned that by being open, honest and listening without judgment, I’m able to mentor and help others.

I’ve also learned that things do get better with time.

My college story is ending well. I’m president of an R&B and soul a cappella group whose members are other Boston College students of color. I also won a Hero Student Scholarship, the one I applied to when my mom was so sick. Not only did it help my family financially, it also told me that I mattered to myself and others.

I expect to graduate in May with a biology degree and a philosophy minor. I’m applying to veterinary schools for the fall.

I have come so far since those dark days alone in my dorm room. I got here with a lot of help from my friends — and by giving a lot of help to my peers. I might not be a hero to anyone else, but I’m a hero to myself; that is, and will always be, enough.

Silvia Ballivian is a senior at Boston College on the pre-veterinarian track.

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Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Early Childhood newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Wednesday with trends and top stories about early learning. Subscribe today!

Over the years, home visiting programs have been proven to improve the health and well-being of children and their parents by providing much-needed support, education and resources during the challenging months after a child’s birth. But obstacles to expansion remain: Some families are particularly hard to reach and parents may feel uncomfortable inviting strangers into their homes.

A new study shows there may be an effective solution to these challenges: adding parent support programs to regular well check visits at pediatricians’ offices.

The study, which was published in The Journal of Pediatrics in December, looked at Smart Beginnings, a family support program in low-income communities aimed at promoting responsive parent-child interactions during infancy and toddlerhood. The program combines two separate parent-support elements that have independently been proven to improve parenting: video interaction during well-child visits within pediatric offices and brief home visits for select families in need of more support.

Researchers found the program “significantly promoted” parents engaging in cognitively stimulating activities with their children, leading to an increase in talking to children, reading with children and the use of rich language — deliberately exposing children to a broad vocabulary throughout their daily activities.

“It actively promotes these positive things that we think matter for kids,” said Elizabeth Miller, the study’s lead investigator and an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine. These behaviors continued as children aged from infancy to toddlerhood, suggesting the program is successful at helping parents meet the varying and ever-changing cognitive needs of young children, Miller added.

During the video interactions, a coach meets with the parent, talks about the child’s development, gives the parent a developmentally appropriate book or toy and then records the parent interacting with their child for three to five minutes. That video is then reviewed on the spot with the coach, who reinforces the positive interactions recorded; the parent receives a copy of the video to take home.

The home visits, or family check-ups, are provided to families based on factors such as maternal depression, concerns over child behavior and development or involvement with the state’s child protective services department. These visits are led by a social worker or clinician who can help families connect with other services and provide more tailored parenting and family support. Clinicians focus on supporting parent-child relationships, affirming positive interactions between parents and children and encouraging parents to read and play with their children, feedback that “all parents can benefit from,” Miller said.

Both aspects of the program are meant to be easy for parents to fit into their lives, Miller said. “It’s not super intensive,” she said, “It’s not a ton of burden.” The next step in research on Smart Beginnings is to study outcomes for kids, Miller added. She and her colleagues will now collect school readiness data to determine if the programs are enhancing child language and math outcomes, as well as executive function and behavior.

“Parenting is a critical mediator of school readiness,” Miller said. “The thought is, if we can help parents themselves, will that ultimately affect kids?”

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Middle and high schoolers juggle a lot between school, friends and family life. But an estimated one in five have even bigger responsibilities — they are also caregivers for their families, at a time when most U.S. schools do not formally identify or support caregiving students.

It’s time for adults to recognize and help caregiving adolescents through federal, state and local educational policies, so they do not need to choose between caregiving and school activities.

Caregiving youth provide ongoing, time-intensive care at home to family members who have aging-related needs or are chronically ill, such as grandparents, parents and disabled siblings. They may also take care of younger siblings if their parents are working long hours, disabled or chronically ill.

That means that in addition to schoolwork, caregiving students may manage and administer medicines and medical treatments and finances; cook, feed, shop and clean; or transport and translate for their relatives. Given the pandemic and the U.S. aging population, more people have health-related needs, and it is increasingly common for those needs to be filled by caregiving youth. Our rising numbers of single-parent and intergenerational homes add to this upward trend.

Related: OPINION: We must address Covid-related grief and other pandemic impacts on children

Disproportionately, these caregiving youth are girls, from lower-income families and/or with historically marginalized racial and ethnic identities. That’s one reason why identifying and supporting caregiving youth can help reduce existing gender and racial educational disparities.

Although caregiving during childhood and adolescence can sometimes have positive impacts — young people can gain self-confidence, resilience and close relationships — it is often taxing and interferes with school endeavors, particularly when it is ongoing, time-intensive or emotionally draining. Caregiving adolescents report missing class, struggling to study and complete homework and feeling worried, fatigued and isolated.

It is no surprise then that caregiving adolescents are at heightened risk for learning disruptions and for dropping out of school. But before we can give caregiving youth the support they need, we must identify who and where they are.

Caregiving students are currently “hidden” from educational systems in the U.S. because they are not formally counted or supported, even though schools routinely identify other populations of potentially vulnerable students (e.g., homeless students).

Caregiving students could easily be identified through mandated statewide, school-based behavioral surveys. If we identify who they are, we can start to understand and support their academic and emotional needs.

For example, caregiving adolescents may need more flexible course schedules or assignment extensions. They may need help managing stress, connecting with other caregiving youth or accessing information and resources.

Federal, state and local policies should mandate counting caregiving youth in schools and districts and allocate funding for school-based support. In addition, the federal programs that support family caregivers but are currently accessible only to adults should be extended to include caregivers who are younger than age 18.

Caregiving adolescents report missing class, struggling to study and complete homework and feeling worried, fatigued and isolated.

The state of Rhode Island is very much leading the way in the U.S. First, the Rhode Island Department of Education partnered with my researcher collaborator and I from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the nonprofit American Association of Caregiving Youth. We surveyed 48,500 public middle and high school students across the state about their experiences providing care to their families.

That work helped bring national attention to caregiving youth, and has already had important impacts. Our 2021 survey, with results publishing in early 2023, reveals that 29 percent of middle and high school students reported caring for family part of the day; 7 percent said they were doing so most of the day. We also found that caregiving students are more likely than non-caregivers to experience ongoing sadness, highlighting the need to support the emotional health of caregiving youth.

Our Rhode Island findings corroborate prior evidence. In 2019, Florida identified caregiving youth in some schools (10,880 students) via a single item in the state’s student behavior survey. Our study of that data revealed that roughly 20 percent of students were caregiving, and they reported having more emotional problems and lower academic performance. Caregiving students in other states urgently need to be counted and supported, too.

Second, Rhode Island is designing policies to support caregiving students in schools. For example, the state is considering awarding these students community service hours for their caregiving work and designing flexible class schedules, skill-building groups and support groups for them.

The U.S. is trying to increase access to education and reduce inequalities. Targeted, school-based, local, state and federal policies can enable caregiving students to achieve their developmental and academic potential and reduce inequalities. Adding a measure for caregiving students to existing school-based surveys is one small but necessary step. Once we see and recognize them, we can and should meaningfully support the emotional health and educational success of the millions of students who are doing so much for others.

Emma Armstrong-Carter is a developmental psychologist who researches how children and adolescents provide caregiving for their families, and how this relates to their educational success. This work is also led by Elizabeth Olson, Connie Siskowski, and the Rhode Island Department of Education.

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More than twenty years after Barbara Ehrenreich uncovered deep economic inequities and indignities endured by the working poor, America’s child care workers are sacrificing their own well-being to support the U.S. economy.

In a recent survey conducted by researchers with the RAPID-EC Project at Stanford University, 29 percent of child care workers reported not being able to consistently afford nutritious food in 2021, up from 23 percent prior to the pandemic. Among family, friend and neighbor providers — the license-exempt caregivers who look after more than 5.8 million 0-5-year-olds in their own homes — 34 percent reported experiencing food insecurity in the past six months.

The average child care provider takes home just $13.22 per hour,  an unlivable wage that is not keeping pace with the 13 percent rise in the cost of groceries in 2022. Child care workers often feed the children in their care two or three meals a day plus snacks, a cost that comes out of their own pockets and sometimes off their own dinner plates.

Paying for the rising cost of food also means child care providers sometimes forgo other expenses — health care, utilities, etc. — that keep them and their own children healthy.

Home Grown, an organization focused on improving the access to and quality of home-based child care, recently convened caregivers from across the country to discuss the issue of food insecurity among child care providers. One participant noted that more and more children are coming to her program hungry.

“Last year about half of the children [12 kids, from age 1 to 10] in my program arrived without having had breakfast,” she said. “Now every single child arrives needing breakfast.”

Paying for the rising cost of food also means child care providers sometimes forgo other expenses — health care, utilities, etc. — that keep them and their own children healthy.

Yet the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), which reimburses child care providers for meals they feed to the children in their care, doesn’t come close to compensating providers for the escalating cost of nutritious food. CACFP reimburses eligible providers for only two meals and one snack per day, for a total reimbursement of approximately $6 per day, per child in home-based family child care programs.

Most egregious, since the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, CACFP has used a two-tier system that reimburses some eligible home-based child care providers at a lower rate than others. According to this system, providers in uniformly low-income neighborhoods or who have incomes at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty rate are designated as Tier 1, while those in mixed-income neighborhoods or with slightly higher incomes are designated as Tier 2 and receive a much lower rate of reimbursement.

The reimbursement rates are so low for Tier 2 that, with the expenses of meeting the nutrition standards and the effort of the paperwork required, they discourage many eligible child care providers from participating at all. One provider told us she served over 300 meals and snacks in her program in October, and with the Tier 2 rate this would have been impossible to afford. Even at the Tier 1 rate, it is a challenge.

Related: What’s next for child care after Senate bailed on reforms

Home-based providers are dedicated professionals who understand, as one provider argued during the Home Grown convening, that “children need a nutrient-rich diet to help them process the world around them. Children who don’t get the nutrition they need may have behavior issues and cognitive delays.”

That’s why increasing payment rates for child nutrition and expanding access to the CACFP and other assistance programs so that all child care workers can use them would bolster the health of our children and their caretakers.

The pandemic waivers and the Keep Kids Fed Act were a good, but temporary, start. The waivers and act increased payment rates through June 2023 and paused the tiering system temporarily.

Congress must act quickly to renew the Child Nutrition Act and invest in CACFP by adding payment for an additional meal. Congress must also build on what they started with the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act.

Then, legislators must act on the rest of these reasonable recommendations, along with home-grown solutions from those who know best: The women who are taking care of our kids — and going hungry themselves in order to feed them.

Alexandra Patterson is the director of Policy and Strategy at Home Grown. Her work focuses on policy solutions that equitably distribute resources to home-based child care settings.

Mary Beth Salomone Testa is a consultant for Home Grown whose work focuses on advocacy and policy development around family child care.

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VERMILLION, S.D. — The students looked as if they could be getting ready for a Harry Styles concert, sprawled out across the carpet in the University of South Dakota’s student center. Early 2000s pop music flowed as they spent the evening hunched over poster boards and deconstructed cardboard boxes, chatting, shaking paint pens and passing around bags of plastic gemstones and faux flowers. 

But a closer look through the rhinestones and bright paint revealed fury, not fandom. Their signs read, “You cut off my reproductive rights, should we cut off yours?” and “The hardest decision a person can make isn’t yours.”

Preparing for a march across campus to protest the recent Supreme Court decision that triggered a near-total abortion ban in their state, the students encouraged one another to avoid the use of gendered language for people who get abortions and think carefully before using images like clothes hangers on their signs. 

While they worked, Lexi McKee-Hemenway — wearing cargo pants, a tank top and sparkly silver eye shadow — made her way through the group with a spiral notebook, seeking fellow students who wanted to take leadership roles in the university’s Students for Reproductive Rights group, which she said has roughly doubled in size, to 30 members, since last year. 

McKee-Hemenway, the group’s president, is among college students across the country who are frantically advocating for changes in policy and laws to make abortion legal again, while also trying to help those who may need an abortion in the meantime. Working on both goals at the same time can be daunting.

“That’s all very scary, it’s very dystopian,” McKee-Hemenway said. “There are still resources, and there are people that will help them get those resources. It is hard, but we will make it happen.”

South Dakota is one of 14 states that have banned abortions with few exceptions as of late September; like South Dakota, most had “trigger laws” designed to take effect once the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.  A number of other states’ bans are still being contested in state courts.

South Dakota’s law, passed in 2005, is among the most rigid in the country, prohibiting abortion procedures, abortion pill prescriptions even by telemedicine and allowing no exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Since then, two attempts to ban abortion by amending the state constitution have been made; both failed, but about 45 percent of voters supported them.

Many of the states that ban abortion, including South Dakota, also do not mandate that public school students receive sex education. When sex education is offered in South Dakota, it’s not required to be medically accurate or include information on consent.

Related: How are college campuses preparing for a post-Roe world?

Kate Cartagena, the director of youth campaigns at Planned Parenthood, said without sex education, young people “don’t even know all the things they need to know about how to control their own bodies.”

Planned Parenthood’s Generation Action program supports more than 350 high school and college advocacy groups, including the Students for Reproductive Rights at the University of South Dakota, which with 7,000 undergraduates is the state’s second largest college after South Dakota State. Generation Action encourages students to work not only for abortion access, but for local needs like travel funds for students choosing abortions and flexible attendance policies so that students are not penalized academically if they need to miss class for abortion care.

Though the university group receives guidance and resources from the larger organization of Planned Parenthood, the students and their two faculty advisers said that on campus they operate mostly on their own.

McKee-Hemenway has long been passionate about abortion rights, but when she saw the alert on her phone about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, she said it felt as if the world were falling apart. 

“I’ve tried not to make politics my entire life, but now it’s more of a moral thing,” McKee-Hemenway said.

Across the country, students and professionals alike had been preparing for the Supreme Court decision. When it was leaked in May, Advocates for Youth was five weeks into an abortion doula training for young people across the country who hoped to be able to support their peers before, during and after an abortion. And URGE, which stands for Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, helps student groups nationwide learn to advocate for themselves in their state legislatures.

Colleges in states where abortion is now illegal have found themselves in a complicated situation, in part because many rely on state legislatures for funding. Some have chosen to remain silent, while others, like the University of Idaho, have instructed faculty to speak of abortion only neutrally and have stopped offering birth control to students to avoid breaking the law.

President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona have urged colleges to maintain access to birth control.

“I want to be clear with college leaders in America, access to contraception should not be in question, and access to health care, including reproductive health care, is critical to the wellbeing and success of our nation’s students,” Cardona said Tuesday.

In South Dakota, any person who prescribes, administers or procures an abortion is guilty of a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison or a fine of up to $4,000, or both, according to the state legislature. The only exception is for an “appropriate and reasonable” medical judgment that an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother.

Advocates like McKee-Hemenway say the law leaves medical providers with little definition of what qualifies as risk to the life of a pregnant woman. And it leaves people like her uncertain of exactly what they can do to help peers who need abortion care. 

Their options are limited. 

A student who is less than 11 weeks pregnant can get a medication abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux City, Iowa, which is about 40 miles from campus. To receive a procedural abortion, allowed by Nebraska state law through 16 weeks and six days, a student would have to travel nearly 140 miles to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Omaha, Nebraska. Going out of state to receive an abortion is legal, but difficult for students without cars or financial resources. For example, to get from Vermillion to Omaha would take about two hours by car, and far longer by public transit, requiring multiple transfers and some walking.

Other students on campus believe these aren’t the only options. The university’s pro-life student group works to counsel those who are pregnant to get early-term care at nearby crisis pregnancy centers, and to continue with the pregnancy.

Related: Overturning Roe challenges OB-GYN training

For those who seek abortions, it’s still unclear whether the university will provide help.

The school hasn’t issued a statement on the restriction on abortion access since the Supreme Court decision in late June. Representatives from the university did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story. 

The silence frustrates McKee-Hemenway, a junior who hopes to graduate early, at the end of this academic year. At the very least, she said, the university should have told students: “ ‘Hey, some basic health care isn’t going to be extended to you here. You will have to leave the state on your own time, with your own money.’ ”

And while she’s from South Dakota, many of her peers come from states where abortion is still legal.

When Minnesota native Rosamaria Rodriguez learned the Supreme Court decision would change her rights in South Dakota, she began to second-guess her college decision. 

“I liked the campus and the people seemed like they would be a good fit, but I don’t know if I really wanted to spend my college years in a place where they can’t even respect what I want to do with my own body,” Rodriguez said. 

Ultimately, she decided to stick with her choice, because she wants to be a doctor and believes this university is best for her academically. She moved to Vermillion in mid-August as a freshman, and soon joined the Students for Reproductive Rights group.

Along with marching and chalking slogans on campus sidewalks, group members also spend time in the student center each week passing out flyers and answering questions, trying to make sure students know which hotlines and abortion funds can help them coordinate and cover costs for travel and lodging if they need to go to another state to obtain an abortion. They also share information about how to self-manage an abortion with pills that can be ordered online, even if state law prohibits it. 

Related: If we see more pregnant students post-Roe, are we prepared to support them? 

“Right now, options are very limited,” McKee-Hemenway said. “It is better to be aware of where you can go if you do need it.”

McKee-Hemenway, 20, grew up about six hours northwest of Vermillion, in Sturgis, South Dakota, a small city of fewer than 7,000 people today. Her mother, Katy Hemenway, said she has always been pro-choice, and began talking to her daughter about reproductive health when she was in middle school. As Lexi got older and started having friends who needed birth control or the morning-after pill, she knew she could turn to her mother for information if they asked her for help.

As she was learning about real-life resources that could help prevent teen pregnancies, she was also on the speech and debate team, learning to pick apart complicated, controversial issues. She started in 2015 as an eighth grader, a year earlier than most students, taking the bus to a local high school on Wednesday afternoons to participate.

The team debated everything from standardized testing to child labor to carbon emissions taxes, and McKee-Hemenway said abortion came up every year. More often than not, she found her view on abortion to be a minority opinion. At the University of South Dakota, she’s found kindred spirits, and feels less like the “black sheep” than she did growing up in Sturgis.

For McKee-Hemenway, an abortion decision is very personal, but even in general terms, the topic can be difficult to discuss. She said she found herself in tears after a recent event discussing the implications of the Supreme Court decision for South Dakotans, as she thought about the challenges people now face in seeking abortion care. Staging protests and hosting events help boost morale among tired and busy student advocates, she said.

“It can be really hard to keep the fire lit for a super long time,” McKee-Hemenway said. When they have events, they can reignite the conversation on campus.

Students for Reproductive Rights also collects menstrual hygiene products to donate to local shelters and schools, offers sex trivia contests on campus to raise money, and tries to help educate other students about reproductive health.

Anna Bottesini, a sophomore, will take over as the president of Students for Reproductive Rights after McKee-Hemenway graduates next spring. When she learned of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe, she said, “it was like a punch to the stomach.”

She said there have been many new faces in the group this fall, and to her, it makes sense that this major policy shift would drive concerned students her group’s way.

Related: How student parents of young kids make it through college

“There’s a lot of people who are just worried, in general, like, ‘What if my birth control fails? What do I do? What happens then? Because I can’t — I’m a broke college student and how can I afford to, like, go and do this?’ ” Bottesini said. “There are a lot of people who are upset about it and just don’t know what to do.”

But the student body also has a contingent that believes abortion is wrong and is pleased with the Supreme Court decision and the subsequent tightening of laws in South Dakota.

The student anti-abortion group, named Yotes for Life after the school’s coyote mascot, meets just off campus at the St. Thomas More Newman Center. Though the building is a hub for Catholic students, the group’s president, Gavin Holt, said members do not need to identify as Catholic to participate.

Standing in front of a large projector screen for his presentation welcoming new and returning members, Holt wore a royal blue T-shirt that read “Remember the Unborn” across the back, the slogan of a group called Life Runners. He is also president of the local chapter of that group, which is religious and which he said is not affiliated with the university, though it meets in the same location directly after the student group meets, and with many of the same students.

Holt, a sophomore, is Catholic, but avoids using the church’s teachings when arguing his view on the issue. At Yotes for Life’s first meeting of the year, he explained the logic behind the group’s stance: Life is a human right; abortion takes a life; therefore, abortion is a violation of human rights.

Holt said the group aims to share that view of abortion and provide women with access to resources offered at local crisis pregnancy centers. At the meeting, Holt and fellow student leaders tallied up those who might be interested in volunteering at three such centers nearby. These organizations typically offer pregnancy tests, ultrasound scans, pregnancy information and counseling against abortion. 

Like Students for Reproductive Rights, Holt’s group spreads its message via sidewalk chalk across campus. Instead of using catchy slogans, Holt urged members to stick with helpful phone numbers and resources. The two groups fundamentally disagree, but both say they generally try to avoid antagonizing each other.

“I don’t agree with them, but I don’t think they are, like, ill-willed,” Holt said. He also said his group would not stage a counter-protest to McKee-Hemenway’s, because he did not think it was right to “ambush” another group.

One afternoon early in the semester, Students for Reproductive Rights and supporters from across campus gathered outside the athletic center, under the late summer sun. They passed around little leaflets printed with chants and offered to share sunscreen. 

It was 95 degrees as they began their march across campus. Some students carried the signs they’d made two nights before, though about 50 showed up to march — many more than had attended the sign-making session. McKee-Hemenway, carrying only an acoustic megaphone, led them in chants.

When they arrived at the campus’s main academic quad, McKee-Hemenway and the leaders of the College Democrats and the university’s LGBTQ+ student alliance climbed to the top of a set of stairs to speak from a balcony. The three told the students that they weren’t alone in their fight toward legalizing abortion care in South Dakota.

Some hope that abortion can be legalized in South Dakota via a ballot initiative, which shifts the power from lawmakers to voters. This tactic was recently successful in Kansas, where 59 percent of voters voted to keep abortion legal, and will soon be tested in Michigan, Montana, Kentucky, California and Vermont. 

The ballot initiative effort involves a lengthy approval process with the state and the collection of thousands of signatures, so it wouldn’t likely go to the voters soon. 

More immediately, students are encouraging one another to update their voter registration and prepare to vote this November. The Republican governor is up for re-election, and all 105 state legislative seats are on the ballot.

For now, though, abortion is illegal in South Dakota, and the students have no insight about whether, if they sought abortion care, the college would help them or report them to law enforcement.  For now, their best bet is to help one another. 

At the protest, McKee-Hemenway and the others urged their peers not to give up in their fight for bodily autonomy and the right to access a safe abortion. 

“Look around,” McKee-Hemenway said to the crowd. “These are the people in your corner. This is your mutual aid now.”

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