Trauma in the Time of COVID

Text from Natalie Stroud’s presentation during “Education Workers Unite to Defend Vermont Education” on May 29.

My name is Natalie Stroud. I have been a preschool teacher in Burlington for six years. I'm not going to rehash most of the facts and figures because they are already out there and I encourage you to read the letters written people who work in childcare centers. I will share with you the reason WHY I have chosen to plead with Governor Scott to reconsider the June 1st reopening date.


Our nation is experiencing collective trauma right now. Trauma happens when what we individually assume to be true about the world or ourselves is challenged, making it hard to cope and impossible to go back to how things were before. We will all be changed forever by this pandemic. That is trauma.


My students are home right now learning that sometimes parents lose their jobs. They are learning that you can’t always trust the grownups in charge to tell the truth or take care of us. They are learning what it feels like to be isolated and lonely. They are learning that sometimes people don’t always get better when they get sick. All of this is traumatic.


People often say, "kids are so resilient, they will be fine" and yes, kids have the capacity for resilience. But don’t be fooled, their body will remember the trauma for the rest of their lives. They keep moving and smiling because they have to to survive.

So much social and emotional learning takes place in the first five years of life, which is why it is essential that children receive high quality, trauma-sensitive care in early childhood. When we send our children back to school, we need to make sure the environment can provide this for them. They deserve it. 


Right now, our country is showing that we do not value their education. We do not value the quality of their care. Preschool aged children need touch. They need to play with their friends. They need their bodies to be comfortable and unencumbered by a mask in order to learn. They need to see their teachers’ mouth move to learn language. They need to be able to nap. They need their special education providers to help them in the classroom. They need to see their teachers smile. They will need all of this even MORE after what they all have gone through these past few months. The schooling experience we would be sending them back to on June 1st would not be that place.


Teachers are scared and worried, rightfully so. We will be overworked and underpaid, in masks and long sleeve button down shirts in the summer heat nonetheless. Of course, two of things aren’t new. We have always been overworked and underpaid. But at this moment in history, we have a chance to change that.


Help families with unemployment if they choose not to or cannot send their child back to school yet. Compensate teachers fairly. Provide more stabilization funds to programs that cannot open yet. Continue paying open programs a stipend for each child enrolled in the program, as the cost of care has risen. The early childhood education system has always been in survival mode but the response to this pandemic, if handled with care, can help programs thrive for the first time in history. We are asking Governor Scott to help us make history and change the landscape of early childhood education in Vermont forever by hearing our pleas.


Thank you.