Their ability to navigate the school day had atrophied, needing to learn the basics, Anderson said, including: “How do I get out of my chair, get a pencil and come back without engaging in some sort of conflict?”

Mental health experts and educators worried prior to this school year what months of isolation and distance learning would look like once students returned to classrooms this fall. Now, more than a month into in-person learning, as the excitement of returning to classrooms has worn off, many students are struggling with social skills and emotional regulation and there isn’t always a qualified adult to intervene.

There are physical fights, petty arguments and frustration boiling over into tears or expletive-laced anger, educators say. Little things, like an unpaid $1 loan for a snack, can feel like big deals to the students, said Leslie Hu, social worker and community school coordinator at San Francisco’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School.

Many students have forgotten not only the rules to blacktop games, but also how to make and keep friends. Some are awkward, uncomfortable and don’t want to ask to go to the bathroom. Others have spent so much time indoors that they struggle to walk or run in a body that has grown a few inches or more.

Students are resilient, but for many, the time away from school has made up a significant chunk of their lives, educators said.

“We are seeing manifestations of the pandemic overall,” she said. “They spent a year and a half not being connected to their peers.”

At Marin Elementary in Albany, educators are “definitely” seeing a change in student behavior, said Principal Melisa Pfohl.

“I think being on Zoom school is really different than being part of an in-person community where they are at school all day and have many more people to interact with and connect with,” she said.

For example, everyone has forgotten the rules for how to play handball or other playground games, leading to arguments and scuffles, Pfohl said.

“Especially for older students, we are seeing the need to remind our students what our expectations are and revisit what it means to be together,” she said, adding the school has a counseling intern program, which has been a big help during the transition back to in-person learning.

School counselor Rebecca Hensler, at San Francisco’s Denman Middle School, is also seeing the impact of the pandemic. Some of her students are struggling to manage frustration.

“When you send students home, halfway through fifth grade and then bring them back the beginning of seventh grade, it’s inevitable you’re going to see students develop at a state that is earlier than what you expect,” she added. “You can’t expect someone to act like a seventh-grader who actually never got to be a sixth-grader.”

High school students are also struggling.

Anabel Harris thought she was something of a social butterfly in middle school, always with friends after school and on weekends.

Then the pandemic hit. After more than a year of online class and limited time in person at her San Francisco high school her freshman year, she likes to be alone.

“I’ve definitely learned to enjoy my own company,” she said. “Maybe I’m not as social as I thought.”

Heading back for her sophomore year at Lick-Wilmerding High, she realized she wasn’t sure how to be social anymore — how to make a new friend, how to talk to strangers.

“I’d forgotten how to have a conversation,” she said.

In addition to the minor skirmishes or awkward social skills, educators are also seeing more severe emotional problems emerge.

The swear words, the crying, the anger, the fighting, is a form of communication from children, signs and symptoms of what they are feeling, Hensler said.

Pandemic-related trauma might be causing some of it. Some students lost family members to coronavirus. Some parents lost jobs, throwing families into financial desperation. Some students were forced to take jobs or take care of younger siblings, pushing school work down the priority list.

“They are telling us how they feel and what they need by how they behave,” she added, just before running out to the playground to mediate a kickball tussle.

Yet not every school has the staff to read those signs and figure out what students need, officials said.

A shortage of teachers, substitutes, aides and counselors has exacerbated what is already a difficult situation,” Hu said.

At her school, 17 out of 50 staff members were absent on one day, with no substitutes available to cover classes.

That means counselors take on the math classes or teachers have to step in during their free period, she said.

“If a kid is crying in a corner, and support staff is all in classrooms, no one is available to sit down with the kid,” Hu said. “I don’t know how to solve the problem of not having enough adults.”

“We’re giving it all we’ve got.”

Many teachers and staff are feeling “April tired in October.”

“I’ve never seen this number of adults seriously considering leaving the profession,” Hu said. “I just don’t think that people understand the severity of what’s happening in education right now.”

The shortages come even as districts across the state have significant pandemic recovery funding to address the needs of students, including $15 billion from the Biden administration as well as $6 billion in additional state funding to address the pandemic impact.

The problem is finding people to hire, said Chris Stoner-Mertz, CEO of the California Alliance, an advocacy organization for children, youth and families.

“There simply aren’t enough mental health professionals to fully address the mental health needs of youth,” she said.

In the meantime, counselors, teachers and other staff are doing what they can — while also dealing with quarantining students, tracking COVID-19 cases and managing the ongoing anxiety.

“For some students who are in crisis in some way and can’t get support for any number of reasons (elsewhere), the fact that we can offer resources at school allows them to access them here,” said Deb Brill, principal at Albany Middle School. “We can’t expect them to be striving academically if we are not addressing the crisis.”