When in-person instruction resumed statewide, much of the conversation centered on a “return to normalcy.” It was a huge relief to welcome students back to campus and see the type of engagement that best facilitates high-quality teaching and learning. Yet, as refreshing as this year has been in some respects, it’s a far cry from normal.

The pandemic has required departures from the regular school routine and left students, staff, parents and governance boards scrambling to contain its impact. The results have been decidedly mixed. There have been demonstrations of great resolve as trustees and school staff have worked to keep schools open and operational despite mounting challenges. Those efforts have resulted in increased opportunities for students to learn, to develop and to simply experience joy at school.

Yet, many students have struggled both during the period of school closure and in the early stages of our return to on-campus instruction. Sadly — and perhaps predictably — the children who have suffered the most are overwhelmingly members of traditionally underserved student groups. The trials of the last two years have exacerbated longstanding disparities in California’s schools as well as those across the country.

For decades, Latino and African American students, English learner students, low-income students, rural students, homeless and foster youth, and students with disabilities have, on the whole, suffered from insufficient resources, inadequate opportunity and unacceptable outcomes. That dismal story took an even darker turn during the pandemic as early research indicates that students in these groups fell further behind their peers in crucial ways.

While California’s 2020–21 graduation rate of 83.6 percent is high compared to historical norms and slipped less than one percentage point from the previous year, graduation rates for African American and Latino students fell by 4.3 and 1.6 percentage points, respectively, while grad rates for white and Asian students rose slightly.

The state’s standardized testing program offered similar results. Standardized tests are an imperfect way of evaluating academic achievement, particularly in a pandemic year when only one quarter of the relevant student population took the exams. Still, with broad strokes, the data can help paint a picture of overall student progress. The numbers show an overall 6-percent dip in passage rates for English language arts and a 12-percent drop in math. The decline was much steeper for low-income students, who saw scores fall 10 percent in English and a stunning 21 percent in math. Passage rates for Latino students were just as dismal, dropping 10 percent in English and 22 percent in math. For Black students, passage rates regressed 7 percent in English and 9 percent in math. White students experienced similar declines, 5 percent in English and 10 percent in math, while not enough Asian students took the test to produce reliable data — which is concerning in and of itself.

Alarming as those results were, perhaps more disturbing is the impact that the pandemic has had on students’ mental health. A July 2021 report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education found that, nationally, 30 to 40 percent of students said the pandemic negatively affected their mental health, and that these effects were significantly more pronounced among girls and for students who were immigrants, student of color, LGBT or living in low-income households.

Perhaps more than any group of students, students with disabilities suffered during the pandemic. Many students in special education failed to receive the same quantity or quality of services that they received before the pandemic, resulting in higher rates of absenteeism and course failure.

It’s clear that the harm caused by the pandemic was uneven and that some groups have endured more and will have a longer road back to anything approaching normal — and normal was nothing to be proud of in many cases. It follows then, that the recovery process cannot be routine or conventional, nor can it treat all students the same. Instead, we must be creative in our approach to helping students and we must invest the greatest share of our resources in those student groups that have borne the greatest burden, not just these past two years, but for generations.

When the pandemic ends, our work will just be beginning. It’s too early to determine the precise impact the pandemic will have long term, but it’s not too early to see which students will require the most support — and to prioritize these students accordingly. Failing to meet the needs of our underserved students is not the kind of return to normal anyone should want to see.