Baldwin UFSD Featured in The74 Newsletter

The stories kept coming. Siblings with terminal illnesses. Close family members dying suddenly. 

Kids were grieving for the first time – more than Baldwin Union Free School District counselors, teachers and administrators had ever realized. 

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen — or maybe we weren’t attuned to before — the number of students who have lost a parent for one reason or another,” said Shari Camhi, the New York district’s superintendent, reflecting on the 2023-24 school year. ”We see a lot of cancer. We’ve seen just a lot of death.”

Baldwin is far from the only district tasked with supporting grieving students. As of spring 2022, nearly 250,000 children across the country lost a parent or caregiver to COVID alone.  

Perhaps, as Camhi conceded, it’s always been like this. Perhaps kids have been grieving quietly. And now, only after concerted efforts to boost family connections and prioritize students’ emotional well-being, were they opening up. 

Now, Baldwin was ready to support them: By the time counselors flagged the stories they’d been hearing from kids, a new, free wellness center had just been built – the home base from where they could launch bereavement groups. 

Read the full story online in The74>>