The Children's Rights Alliance has called on the Government to consider keeping Deis schools open in the event of a new coronavirus lockdown.
The prospect of closing schools for two weeks rather than one during the Halloween mid-term was raised at Cabinet this week.
However, the Department of Education has played down the prospect saying no decision has been taken yet.
Chief Executive of the CRA, Tanya Ward, says closing schools will particularly impact children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Speaking to On The Record With Gavan Reilly, Ms Ward said the Alliance was "particularly concerned" for children and young people.
She added that before further lockdowns are implemented, the impact such restrictions have "on all aspects of society" should be thoroughly considered.
Ms Ward said: "With the last lockdown, what happened was schools were telling us that three in ten children disengaged with their schools and with their principals.
"That's really serious because what you're going to see in the long-term for those children is they're more likely to drop out of school.
"A lot of those children were living in families where it's really toxic for them and the Tusla social workers were saying, 'we can visit the families once a week but it's not enough'.
"The schools are the best protectors of children on a daily basis.
Ms Ward said that principals were telling the CRA that they were "lying awake at night" wondering what was going to happen to students.
She said: "In the UK, when they introduced the lockdown, they actually left schools for disadvantaged children open, and that's what we need to be thinking about.
"Our challenge in Ireland is that only 50% of children living in poverty are in Deis schools, the other 50% are throughout the country and actually, a lot are living in rural schools as well."
This means that even if Deis schools are kept open, a lot of those disadvantaged children will not be catered for.
She said more information needs to be provided on how the virus behaves among different age groups, and maybe a graded approach could be considered.
