KNX News Presents Live Town Hall on Post-Pandemic Learning Crisis Facing Southern Californians

“A Generation Lost” brings together students and experts to illuminate the unseen impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on education and the workforce

With American teens in the midst of a crisis of unprecedented learning losses and mental health impacts three years into the pandemic, KNX News 97.1 FM in Los Angeles presented a live town hall Tuesday called “A Generation Lost.” The one-hour event, held in the Audacy SoundSpace on Los Angeles’s Miracle Mile, brought together teens and experts to illuminate the unseen impacts of the pandemic and discuss potential solutions.

Mike Simpson, host of “LA’s Morning News” on KNX, and Charles Feldman, host of “KNX In Depth” and “LA’s Afternoon News” served as moderators of the commercial-free event, which is available to watch on demand here.

“There is no issue of more universal importance to our communities, said Jeff Federman, Regional President, Audacy Southern California. “It was important that we use our platform at KNX News to ensure parents and teens know they’re not alone in adjusting to a new reality.”

Standardized testing showed 9-year-olds lost the equivalent of two decades of progress in math and reading. Just last week the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed that a staggering 22-percent of U.S. high school students said they had considered suicide.

Panelists included:

Montserrat Hidalgo, Sarah Mian, and Alex Bielanski: students who discussed their first-hand experiences of how the pandemic shutdowns affected their education, social development, and mental health
Jill Baker, Superintendent, Long Beach Unified School District, the 4th largest district in California
Gary Clark, director of undergraduate admissions, UCLA
Chito Cajayon, dean, business department, Los Angeles Trade Tech College
Sean Reardon, Professor of poverty & equality in education, Stanford University

The special one-hour presentation was sponsored by CalHOPE.

Listeners can tune in to KNX News (97.1 FM and 1070 AM) in Southern California on air and nationwide on the Audacy app and website. Fans can also connect with the station via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.