As the student-body president at Florida A&M University, Xavier McClinton deeply missed the unique culture and traditions — bright homecoming festivities with lively bands, hyped football games, senior year celebrations — that were sidelined by the pandemic."Trying to internalize things never works, and it never helps,” McClinton said. When he felt anxious as the pandemic worsened, McClinton often called his dad or close friends to vent.
And then the summer’s racial justice protests “put fuel on the fire.”
"I’ve even gone to a counseling session or two to find a way to verbalize some of the things that I’m feeling and expressing,” McClinton said. “It’s good to know that I’m not alone in that aspect.”
Find the rest of the story here.
'Class of COVID-19: An Education Crisis For Florida's Vulnerable Students' WJCT News 89.9 Special
WJCT News 89.9 will air the one-hour radio special on "The Class of COVID-19" on Friday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. It will also be streamed on WJCT.org and in the WJCT app.
'Class of COVID-19: An Education Crisis For Florida's Vulnerable Students' Jax PBS Special
WJCT-TV 7.1 will air the one-hour TV special on "The Class of COVID-19" on Monday, February 22 at 9 p.m. on antenna TV channel 7.1, Comcast channels 8 and 440. It will also be streamed on Passport and in the WJCT app. The special will encore on Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 5:00 p.m.
WJCT.org is also running a portion of many of the stories.
WLRN education reporter Jessica Bakeman contributed reporting for this story.
This story is part of the Florida Public Media series, "Class of COVID-19: An Education Crisis For Florida's Vulnerable Students." Find the whole project — and sign up for our limited-run newsletter — at classofcovid.org.
“Class of COVID-19” is being produced through a partnership with the following public media organizations: WLRN (Miami), WGCU (Fort Myers), WFSU (Tallahassee), WUSF (Tampa), WMFE (Orlando) , WUCF (Orlando), WPBT/WXEL (Miami/Boynton Beach), WJCT (Jacksonville), WEDU (Tampa) and WUWF (Pensacola).
The project is supported in part by the Hammer Family Charitable Foundation and the Education Writers Association.
