Suspected child exploitation has almost doubled, and child abuse is going unreported because of continued school closures, San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan warned in a recent letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Stephan urged Newsom to get schools open again to stop additional harm that experts say school closures are causing children, such as depression, learning loss and loss of social development.
Stephan and some children’s health experts have said they don’t think policymakers and others are talking enough about the needs of children as they debate when and how to reopen schools. Stephan also said she thinks the opening of other establishments, such as restaurants and shopping malls, has been prioritized over schools.
“Unfortunately there have been no measurable changes to the condition of school closures, and the damage to our kids continues,” Stephan wrote in her letter to Newsom last week.
Schools in San Diego County that have not yet reopened are barred from doing so until the county’s case rate dips below 25 per 100,000 residents for elementary schools, and below 7 per 100,000 for middle and high schools. The county case rate was 34 as of Thursday morning.
The number of tips received by the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force almost doubled from 3,058 tips in 2019 to 5,885 tips in 2020, Stephan noted. Tips quadrupled last April and May compared to the same months in 2019.
The task force receives tips about potential child exploitation, such as the production of child pornography.
“Our human trafficking task force was super busy, our Internet Crimes Against Children task force was inundated, and I couldn’t find any other factor other than that the kids were not in school that made this a reality,” Stephan said in an interview.
Suspected internet crimes against children are on the rise because, without the structure of school and extracurricular activities, children are spending an unprecedented amount of time online, Stephan said.
“Now that they no longer have their bonds with their teachers, their counselors, their coaches, all of these positive influences in their life, it has opened the door for these very unhealthy and destructive influences,” she said.
There also has been an increase in domestic violence in San Diego County, which worries Stephan because the children in those families are likely suffering, yet many lack real access to mental health resources that schools provide, such as counselors, because their schools are closed.
The District Attorney’s Office helped 6,210 domestic violence victims in 2020, an increase of 39 percent from 4,456 the year before.
Meanwhile, child abuse reports have decreased significantly during the pandemic. There were 19 percent fewer reports in 2020 compared to 2019, and in last April specifically, they were down by 41 percent from the same month in 2019.
That’s bad news, Stephan and other experts say, because that means more child abuse is likely going unreported.
School employees including teachers, counselors and principals are mandated by law to report child abuse. Now, because they don’t see children when schools are closed, it’s more difficult to know if a child is being abused.
“We fear that these children are now suffering in silence — and not getting the help they need to become safe,” Stephan wrote.
Stephan said Newsom has not responded to her letter, nor to a similar letter she wrote last September.
Stephan noted there is a growing consensus among experts that school reopenings do not contribute to community COVID-19 spread and rarely have resulted in transmission within schools as long as schools follow safety measures, including masking and social distancing.
Richard Barrera, president of the San Diego Unified School Board, which has not reopened schools for instruction, said the district shares Stephan’s concerns about children’s well-being during school closures.
He said he believes two things need to happen to get schools open: teachers need to be vaccinated and COVID case rates need to be lowered.
He said it has been “incredibly frustrating” to see public policy decisions that he thinks have led to surges in cases, such as the lifting of stay-at-home orders.
“Our ability to get students back on campus is dependent on our ability to get case rates down,” he said. “The question to all of us is, are we going to make the tough decisions that prioritize the needs of kids or are we going to continue to be swayed by whatever pressure results in actions that just keep us on a roller coaster with the spread of the virus?”
Newsom said he is working with legislators this week on a deal to help schools reopen, including a plan for teacher vaccinations.
Some teachers unions have said they don’t want teachers to return to school until they have been vaccinated, including San Diego Unified’s union. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Newsom have said teachers do not have to be vaccinated before reopening schools.
Teachers and other school staff are next in line to be vaccinated in San Diego County, but the county has not yet opened vaccinations to teachers because there is limited supply and a large unmet demand for the vaccine from people 65 and older.