Alberta’s Education Crisis is Also a Health Crisis, And It’s Putting Kids at Risk

R​ight now, Alberta is facing a devastating education crisis, but most people have no idea how deep the consequences go. Yes, we’re talking about overcrowded classrooms, exhausted teachers, and stalled contracts.

But what if we told you this isn’t just about burnt out educators or underfunded schools, it’s also about your child’s long term health?

What’s happening in Alberta is creating the perfect storm.

Alberta’s government is making major changes to public health and social supports, restricting free COVID-19 vaccines to only the highest risk groups and charging most residents $100 per dose, while also slashing $49 million from disability funding.

These policies undermine accessible care for vulnerable communities and have drawn sharp criticism from health and disability advocates for deepening inequity and putting lives at risk.

Experts warn that these policies will both reduce essential help for people already living with disabilities and guarantee even more disability in the future, as fewer protections mean more Albertan’s and their children risk long COVID and lifelong complications.

Overcrowded classrooms, inadequate ventilation, and the removal of basic protections like masking were removed under the guise of a “return to normal” policies.

But we are now learning that “normal” comes at a price, one we haven’t even finished calculating yet.

Long COVID is no longer a fringe topic. It’s real. It’s disabling. And for kids, it can be life altering. We’re talking about severe fatigue, cognitive impairment, immune dysregulation, difficulty concentrating in class, and social withdrawal.

Many children in Alberta, and across Canada, are receiving less than minimal support for long COVID and other post viral conditions, often being misunderstood as lazy or overly anxious while they cope with invisible and debilitating symptoms on a daily basis.

A situation driven primarily by provincial policy decisions that have left physicians, schools and parents without the necessary resources and guidance to effectively help these students.

There’s a strange kind of silence around the idea of long COVID in kids. It’s not that the information isn’t out there. The symptoms are well documented. Fatigue, cognitive impairment (“brain fog”), gut problems, dizziness, neurological impairment (anxiety, panic attacks), sleep disorders.

It’s stuff we’d worry about in adults, but when it’s in a child, we’re more likely to wave it away.

Maybe because we have been told over and over again by public health officials that your kids can’t get Covid in schools and that it’s really not a big deal.

Maybe because we assume that kids bounce back from everything.

Maybe because we don’t want to think too hard about what happens when they don’t.

But long COVID sticks around and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore. Kids with long COVID aren’t just tired, they’re often so exhausted they can’t make it through a school day without crashing.

Some can’t even stand up without their heart racing and their blood pressure dropping.

Others suddenly can’t focus or remember things, even though they could before. These aren’t mild post viral annoyances.

They’re things that derail entire childhoods.

And yet, most physicians and school systems don’t have plans for that.

Lack of common knowledge in the medical community. No formal tests or commonly known guidelines for family doctors and front line physicians to diagnosis. No accommodations in the classroom.

If a child with long COVID can’t concentrate or complete school work, or is experiencing a new onset mental health crisis, parents, teachers and doctors may assume they just need to try harder. Or that it’s anxiety. Or they’re malingering.

Canada has a long, troubling record of neglecting underfunded and poorly understood medical conditions. Patients with illnesses such as ME/CFS (which symptoms overlap significantly with Long COVID), fibromyalgia, and Lyme disease, have been left without proper care or research investment.

Women and children, in particular, are too often dismissed, with debilitating symptoms written off as psychological rather than recognized as legitimate medical concerns.

It would be bad enough if long COVID just burned a few years of childhood for unlucky kids. But it may be worse than that.

What’s even more alarming is what’s happening beneath the surface. Studies show that SARS-CoV-2 can persist in the body and damage vital systems for months. It can impair immune cells like T cells and natural killer cells. The very defenses that fend off other infections and even cancer. We’re finding this virus in children’s (and adults) guts, brains, bone marrow. It doesn’t always leave, and when it does, it can leave damage behind.

This isn’t just about kids missing school. It’s what chronic inflammation does to growing bodies and brains.

It’s about a child who used to love to read and do math and now struggles to put two thoughts together.

It’s about teens who were on the volleyball team and now can’t walk up stairs without getting dizzy, their heart racing or passing out.

It’s about the 16 year old football player that is suddenly too ‘anxious’ or is having ‘panic attacks’ and can’t attend school and participate in life as he used to.

It’s about having a whole generation whose health and learning are disrupted, sometimes permanently, in a way we don’t understand yet, and we are doing nothing to stop it.