Reports of potential child abuse have ticked upward this fall as school has returned, officials said, reversing a steep drop-off from the spring.

“I was concerned. I think that everyone was,” said Maggie Roughton, a social worker with Denver’s Department of Health Services. “Our community, us. When the calls drop, it doesn’t mean that things aren’t going on; it just means they aren’t being reported or investigated. When things shut down, there are a lot less eyes on our kids. That was the scariest thing for us, not knowing.”

Out of 12 types of mandatory reporters tracked by the state, teachers regularly make more than 30% of the reporters of potential abuse, state data shows. When school was hastily moved online in March, those numbers plummeted: Educators no longer saw students in-person each day.

In Denver, there was a 34% decrease in the spring, “a significant amount,” said Stephen Giacomo, who supervises Denver’s child abuse unit. 

The numbers were even more drastic statewide. In April, the state fielded 6,382 referrals, a 42% drop. May was barely better, with a 38% decline. In April 2019, teachers made 3,117 referrals to authorities. This past April, teachers were involved in just 937. 

Referrals to investigators picked up in the summer months, which is unusual – the summer usually brings a drop off, as students leave their classrooms and head home for three months. Roughton said that the cases that landed on her desk were more intense and more “multi-faceted” than is typical.

“Any call of child abuse and neglect is important and needs attention,” she said. “Some stuff coming is really high level and takes a lot of time to work with. It’s multi-faceted – substance use, mental health, domestic violence, the whole kitchen sink. I think that was more of the referrals in the summer. Just a multitude of things going on with one family.”

It’s too early to tell what effect those quiet spring months had on children, Giacomo said, but he’s hoping to have cleared answers in the coming weeks.

A common hypothesis is that abuse increased during the shelter-in-place order, but officials cautioned that there’s no evidence for that as of yet.

“We know that families are stressed, we know that families are isolated, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that children are more likely to be abused and neglected,” said Jade Woodard of Illuminate Colorado, a nonprofit that works to reduce child mistreatment. “It means that we have an opportunity right now to better support families. We are hoping to start to shift the paradigm around asking for help, around building those connections that help families be strong.”

The good news is that calls have picked up once again, though they remain below their pre-pandemic levels. September and October are typically high volume months, as kids again return to school.

Beyond in-person interactions, Giacomo said the trend toward at-home learning has allowed teachers a new window into children’s lives.

“We’ve definitely had many many report of incidents occurring inside the home while children were online remote learning,” he said.

“Examples are like, the parent is discipling a child for some reason verbally or physically, the parent doesn’t seem to understand that that – if the child is remote learning, that’s as if you walked into the classroom and spanked your child or yelled at your child.”

But does the significant link between teachers and reported child abuse raise concern that society relies too heavily on the education system? 

“The fact is we’re relying a lot on the schools to be the social worker these days,” Giacomo, of Denver Health Services, said. “The amount of extra stuff that teachers have to do now other than focus on education, it’s just incredible.” 

He said the state needed to diversify the type of people who’re making reports and that the most vulnerable children are too young to be in the school system anyway. He and others praised the state for attempting to address the overreliance on teachers in recent years.

“It’s incumbent on neighbors, friends, relatives who’ve seen those children, who’ve been in the home, to make those reports,” he said. “We have to take some burden off our educational professionals.”

To make a report of child abuse, call 844-CO-4-KIDS.