By the following Monday (March 16, 2020), the pandemic had turned education upside down. Garages became classrooms. The National Guard became bus drivers. And once classrooms reopened, lessons and learning had to balance against an array of new safety protocols. Soon, a new normal emerged. Between two years of masking protests, COVID testing and rolling quarantines, students across the country have learned, lived and graduated in the most surreal circumstances.

What鈥檚 happened over the past 24 months is a dizzying sequence of events, with photographers capturing America鈥檚 teachers, students and schools adjusting to life during a pandemic. 

To commemorate the anniversary of the shutdown, our photographic timeline below looks at what happened in the months that followed: The empty hallways and student isolation, the teacher who cared for her student鈥檚 newborn brother after the family contracted COVID while teaching remotely in 2020. It also brings us to the present day: Students are back on campus, deciding whether to strip off their masks, and catching up after months of disrupted learning.

Photographers also captured the capricious nature of the pandemic 鈥� and people. One month students were back in class, the next they returned to remote learning. On one side of the country students are maskless, cheering on their football team, while students in other states are protesting for safer COVID practices in schools. 

Below you鈥檒l find a kaleidoscope of striking photos, outlining two unbelievable pandemic years, month by unpredictable month.听

March 2020

April 2020

May 2020

June 2020

July 2020

August 2020

September 2020

October 2020

November 2020

December 2020

January 2021

February 2021

March 2021

April 2021

May 2021

June 2021

July 2021

August 2021

September 2021

October 2021

November 2021

December 2021

January 2022

February 2022

March 2022

2021 Flashback: 52 weeks of disrupted learning, as captured in 52 iconic photos:

To mark the 24 months since schools shut down because of COVID-19, 蜜桃影视 spoke with parents, educators, researchers and students across the U.S. We are running some of these interviews in their entirety to give complete accounts of where we鈥檝e been and where some think we鈥檙e going. 

Beth Lehr, an assistant principal at Sahuarita High School, near Tucson, Arizona, was named the state鈥檚 Assistant Principal of the Year in 2020. A strong advocate for educators, she is dismayed by the extent to which political divisions over the pandemic and other hot-button education issues have left her teachers feeling overwhelmed, dreading to open their emails.

In a February interview, Lehr candidly revealed that she is not immune to such pressures. After she applied for a principal position in her district, she expressed some ambivalence. 鈥溾�榃hy? Why did I just do that?鈥� she recalled thinking. 鈥淚 haven鈥檛 yet gotten to the point where the stuff I dislike about my job outweighed the stuff that I like about it, but it鈥檚 hit or miss on a daily basis.鈥� A mother of two, who saw her own children struggle with the isolation of virtual learning, Lehr said students have lost a lot more than academics during the pandemic. 鈥淚f we don’t address those things,鈥� she said, 鈥渢he academic piece is never going to come back.鈥�

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Give me a little background on your district.

Beth Lehr: The town of Sahuarita is attached to a retirement community. Green Valley is 55 and over and Sahuarita has families. It’s a very interesting dynamic. Our district covers 606 square miles, so it incorporates a number of very rural areas. We have some [families on] ranches. That means they’re pretty remote and rural, and they don’t have real great internet access. We also have a large farming community with a lot of Hispanic families, some who are undocumented.

How did remote learning impact your students?

The biggest struggle was just that feeling of isolation among our students, especially the students in rural areas. It wasn’t simple for them to get on their bike and ride to their friend鈥檚 house or meet in the neighborhood, because they’re 50 miles away. 

What did they do?

Oh my God, the soap dispensers were destroyed over and over and over again. We had to replace sinks. We had to replace toilets 鈥� not because they were stolen, but because they were destroyed. The older students were super-annoyed by the freshman because then we ended up having to lock our bathrooms during lunch. 

The problem-solving that they’re [supposed to learn] over seventh and eight grade, they didn’t learn. The relationship skills that you refine when you’re in middle school, they didn’t do. A lot of the stuff that we were seeing at the beginning of the school year is very much what I would see when I was teaching middle school. 

We鈥檝e also had an increase in sexual infractions 鈥� not necessarily assaults. It鈥檚 consensual, but it鈥檚 much more frequent on our campus this year. This is my seventh year as assistant principal, and this year, hands down, we have had more issues with kids getting caught in positions that high schoolers should not be in. Maybe once a year, we’d have kids getting caught having sex on campus. It鈥檚 definitely increased this year.

Is that related to the pandemic?

I can鈥檛 do causality. I can just say this is what I鈥檝e seen. 

Arizona also has probably one of the worst sex education programs in the country. [The legislature] recently reintroduced where sex education programs cannot talk about homosexuality, other than it being an aberrant behavior. They’re pushing through an anti-trans bill that says trans girls can鈥檛 be in sports, which by the way, is not an issue. That’s where the frustration is. Arizona is pushing through all of these hot-button things that the super-conservative think tanks and [political action committees] are doing.

He wanted to target the funds to schools not requiring masks?

It was like Ducey said, 鈥淚f you follow my direction and do not have any COVID protocols, I’ll give you the money.鈥� The federal government was quick to say, 鈥淣o, no. That’s not how any of this works.鈥� [Ducey] actually because [they weren鈥檛] letting him spend the money the way he wanted. He came out with an saying essentially that if your child鈥檚 school closes ever, for any amount of time, we will give you X amount of money that you can take to a private or charter school 鈥� doubling down again on anti-public health measures. As it turns out, when you don’t have a mask mandate, more kids get sick. My district does not have a mask mandate, so we are sending home multiple children.

Have you seen fatigue in your teachers? Are some calling in sick? 

Teachers have been stepping up, but they’re so tired. They’re essentially running three different classrooms in each class period. You have the kids who are sent home because they’re COVID positive and they’re sick so they’re not doing anything. You have the kids who get quarantined. Even though my teachers are keeping up all their Google classrooms and hosting virtual tutoring and sometimes live-streaming their classes, maybe 10 percent of those kids are actually taking advantage of what the teachers are doing. Then they have the kids who are in front of them.

It’s so overwhelming, and they don’t have prep periods because we don’t have any substitutes. We try to protect their prep, but we only have three administrators. If we have six teachers with no coverage, sometimes it has to be the other teachers [covering the classes], and we can’t have all three administrators not available because it’s still a high school and we still have the everyday high school stuff.

Have you lost any teachers mid-year?

Yes. We lost one teacher at our fall break. It was too much for her physical well-being, and her mental well-being. Her position was filled by a long-term sub [until early February].

My site has had very low turnover. I do not foresee that being the case next year. I have one teacher. This is her ninth year. She has already resigned for next year. She said, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 do this anymore. I dread coming to work every day.鈥� 

I have teachers who are brand new to the district who are frustrated because they caught COVID and they have to use all of their personal sick days to stay home.

Do people feel like the pandemic is ending?

There are kind of two camps. There鈥檚 the one camp of 鈥淭his too shall pass,鈥� and then there鈥檚 the other camp of 鈥淵eah, it鈥檚 going to pass, but I don鈥檛 know if I want to wait for it to.鈥� Anybody who was on the fence about education is weighing if the parts that they love about the job are still outweighing the parts that they don’t love. Actually, the teacher who resigned said, 鈥淵ou know, I love the day-to-day of being in front of our kids. The second I have to open my email or grade their assignments is when I realize why I resigned.鈥� The emails. The constant onslaught of the very vocal unhappy parents. We have some amazing families, but we don鈥檛 hear the 鈥淭hank yous鈥� as often as we hear the 鈥淵ou sucks.”

It鈥檚 so hard to see the end, and it鈥檚 so overwhelming. What I鈥檝e heard more than anything this year from my teachers is, 鈥淲e thought that last year was hard. This year is 10 times harder.鈥� We鈥檝e had very, very low turnover. I do not foresee that being the case next year. 

I was looking at 蜜桃影视, and I read the headline about this not being the great resignation for teachers. That’s just because it’s not the end of the year, and teachers have too much integrity to leave their kids in the middle of the year unless it’s a dire scenario. We are going to see it, and it is going to be bad. In December of 2020, Arizona had 2,500 unfilled teaching positions. I guarantee you, we’re going to have pretty darn close to 4,000 for next school year. We don’t have anybody in the pipeline to fill them. Our profession has been vilified and de-professionalized quite successfully.

Did you ever feel like, 鈥淚’ve done this long enough and now is the time to go?鈥�

All the time. I’m still feeling that. I鈥檓 so torn. I鈥檝e applied for a principal position within the district, but at the same time I鈥檓 like, 鈥淲hy? Why did I just do that? What am I thinking?鈥� I haven鈥檛 yet gotten to the point where the stuff that I dislike about my job has outweighed the stuff that I like about it, but it鈥檚 hit or miss on a daily basis. 

What keeps you positive ? 

It鈥檚 100 percent the kids.

Is there anyone in particular?

There is a student who is going to graduate 鈥� he’s going to graduate a little late, but I don’t care, he’s going to graduate. I know that our school is home for him. He doesn’t have a supportive household. Everyday that I see him and his sister at school, I say, 鈥榊eah, you guys made it. Thank God.鈥� This is a family who was dropping off the radar when we were virtual. I said, 鈥淔orget that. This is not going to happen. I’m going to bring you the paperwork for you guys to fill out so that I can get you internet. I’m going to bring you computers.鈥� 

You went to their house? 

I took computers. I showed up at random times to figure out why they weren鈥檛 in their classes.

One focus this year has been freshman, specifically to prevent them from failing their classes or from failing too many. We have time built into our lunch where teachers have office hours. We made those office hours mandatory if students had lower than a 65 percent, because if you go into your finals with lower than a 65 percent, the chances are very high that you’re going to fail the class. 

Of course, the students who need to go tend to be the students who don’t go. I have not started it yet this semester. A couple of the students are not doing well again, and they said 鈥淢s. Lehr, are you going to start it again? When can we come in?鈥� I said, 鈥淵ou want to come in with me?鈥� That’s from 14-year-old kids who before I had to beg to come. That鈥檚 very heartening.

Some of these freshmen I know are making stupid choices. I had a conversation with a kid who at the beginning of the year was just as quick to tell me to 鈥淔鈥� off.鈥� But now, here we are where a relationship has been built.

How have you kept yourself sane?

I do not check my email at all on the weekends. My husband and I will go hiking, and I try to spend my weekends solely with my children. I have a 9-year-old and an 11-year-old. 

We kept them in a remote option all last year, but because my husband and I were both at school, that meant that they were home by themselves. They were 8 and 10. On a personal level, my kids had to grow up a lot faster than I would have preferred, but now they have this certain level of independence that’s really cool. It reminds me of when I was a kid in the 鈥�80s. Your parents are working. Here’s a key. Don’t tell anyone your parents aren’t home.

How did remote learning affect them?

My daughter is very intelligent and very sneaky. She’s a 鈥渉ow-can-I-work-the-system鈥� kid. All year last year, she was trying to find different ways to make us think she was doing her work. She got caught every time, and then the real-world consequences hit her at the beginning of this school year. She was so used to being advanced. She was in fifth grade, so she thought, 鈥淲hen I go into middle school, I’m going to be in pre-algebra, and then I’m going to be able to be in algebra when I’m in seventh grade.鈥� The thing that she didn’t do all fifth grade was math. You can’t skip a year of math and then go into pre-algebra. That was a super hard lesson for her. It’s kind of actually a good thing, but socially she struggled immensely. There was a definite decline in her mental well-being because she is such a social person.

My son is not particularly social. My son is very quick to rise to frustration, and with that comes some acting out. Because it was just him and his sister at home, there were sometimes some physical altercations between them. Nobody was seriously injured or anything, but that was definitely not something we had seen in the past. There were holes in our walls from my son digging his pencils into them that we had to patch. There was a computer screen that we had to replace because it magically cracked somehow.

What do you think schools have learned from all of this?

I鈥檝e had a lot of teachers really rethink their philosophies 鈥� some of my most dyed-in-the-wool [teachers]. This has truly opened their eyes when they鈥檝e seen the disparities. Not everybody鈥檚 home looks the same. When we first started doing all of the remote teaching, we had a lot of really serious conversations about requiring cameras to be on or not. A lot of our teachers were like, well, 鈥淲hy wouldn鈥檛 the camera be on?鈥� They never took into account that there might be 10 people in a two-bedroom house. There might be somebody being slapped, hit, cut, whatever while they鈥檙e there. They might be embarrassed because they鈥檙e doing your class from their car in the McDonald鈥檚 parking lot.

What do you think the education system learned?

I don’t know. It’s like, 鈥淥K, we figured this out.鈥� Well, we didn鈥檛. For example, we have a guest Wi-Fi that a lot of our students use. It was shut down. They didn’t tell any of us until the day they shut it down. Didn’t ask us. We have a whole bunch of students who are using their own personal devices because we’re not a 1-to-1 district. They don’t have data. They can only use it when they’re on Wi-Fi. All of the stuff that we鈥檙e telling our teachers to use 鈥� Pear Deck, Kahoot, Duolingo 鈥� now all the sudden, students can’t access it. 

Our district is woefully behind on the infrastructure. This was highlighted in 2020. We’ve had two years. Why are we still so far behind? I know that it’s not malicious. I know that it’s not ill will. I know that it’s not because they don’t care. But why is it still not done? 

What do you think schools have learned about working with parents? 

The hardest part of my job is never the students. All of these laws that are passing, if you ask our students, they think they’re terrible. We have a number of students who are very upset because their parents won’t let them get vaccinated. How do we meet the needs of the student when the student has different desires and needs than what the parent wants for them? It’s walking that fine line. I think that we’re doing it. We keep open communication with parents, but we still try to honor the student. 

We’ve definitely had to learn how to redirect tone. We’ve had to step in a little bit more when it comes to our front office and the people who definitely don’t get paid enough to deal with it. When parents say, 鈥淭his person was rude to me,鈥� we’ve been OK with saying, 鈥淲ere you polite to them?鈥� My health assistant walked away from a parent yesterday, and I said, 鈥淭hat sounds fine. I would have done it, too.鈥�

My school has not necessarily had some of the higher profile things, but the school that I just applied to for the principal position did make . The parents dragged [their daughter] in and said, 鈥淪he’s coming [to school]. You’re violating her rights by not letting her be here.鈥� 

She was quarantined?

Yes, and she鈥檚 saying, 鈥淚t鈥檚 fine, it鈥檚 fine.鈥� These parents literally picked that hill to die on, and they were arrested. Now they鈥檙e all facing charges, including the poor girl. Our neighboring district is one where the business owner was live streaming as he and two people took zip ties to the school to do a on the principal. That is not a citizen鈥檚 arrest. That is kidnapping. 

There is still hope and the kids are just so happy when they get to be there. One of the things we miss is that brief shining moment in March, April and May of 2020 when people really truly started to appreciate what teachers did. I’m really sad that that didn’t stick.

You talked about the students鈥� immaturity. What about academic growth? Are you seeing improvements now that they鈥檙e back in school? 

The learning loss is going to be there. There鈥檚 going to be a new norm, but trying to jam more and more and more down their throats is not helping. Continuing to create these high-stakes environments and making kids feel less because of something that was totally out of their control is not helping. Meeting kids where they are is. Teachers need to be able to have the ability to meet the kids where they are without fearing the loss of their job or the loss of pay. We’ve all had too much loss. 

Why do they have to learn all these things, right? They have to learn it to be successful in the future. Great, what does that success look like? How are we redefining success, because honestly, right now, for some of these kids, success is getting out of bed and showing up. If we provide an environment for them that makes them get up and be there 鈥� when that’s the last thing they want to do 鈥� that is success. They technically had academic learning loss, but they’ve lost so much other stuff. If we don’t address those things, the academic piece is never going to come back. 

To mark the 24 months since schools shut down because of COVID-19, 蜜桃影视 spoke with parents, educators, researchers and students across the U.S. We are running some of these interviews in their entirety to give complete accounts of where we鈥檝e been and where some think we鈥檙e going. 

Bridgette Adu-Wadier was a junior at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandra, Virginia, when schools closed for the pandemic. Like many teens across the country, she took on additional responsibility 鈥� managing remote learning for her younger siblings while also navigating the transition to college. Isolation at home, the stress of applying for college and financial aid, and an abnormal freshman-year experience all contributed to mental and emotional strain. 

鈥淭he education system,鈥� she said in a January interview, 鈥渞eally doesn’t adapt to the needs of students as human beings.鈥� But throughout the past two years, she said she鈥檚 learned to let go of things she can鈥檛 control, that she鈥檚 more resilient than she realized and that she鈥檚 鈥済ained a lot more empathy toward myself and others.鈥�

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Feb. 14 will be 700 days since most schools began closing. That number even took us by surprise. What鈥檚 your initial reaction to it?

Bridgette Adu-Wadier: It feels a lot longer than 700 days. The last time I was actually in a classroom under normal circumstances, with no masks or anything, was my junior year of high school.

I also think of my three younger siblings. They all had their education and schooling impacted by this. I was talking to a teacher from my hometown, and she said the pandemic has just really affected the ability for students to develop academically and psychologically. An eighth grader is really a 6th grader, and a fourth grader is really a second grader.

Do you remember when you realized that everything had changed?

Halfway through March, [the district] said we would have virtual classes for two weeks. It was around spring break, so we basically had an extended spring break. There was still a lack of information about how severe the pandemic was. We didn’t really know what was going to happen. Everyone was under the impression that we would come back after two weeks and things would be fine. 

By the end of March, Gov. Ralph Northam announced all the schools would be closed for the rest of the school year. I watched the live stream t and I was texting my friends. One of them was actually really upset and crying about it, just because it was such a stressful situation to be in 鈥� like, things are never going to be the same again.

You made the transition into college during this time. What has that been like?

It was frustrating to see some people complaining about classes being virtual. Of course, nobody wants to be at a school as expensive as Northwestern and not be able to take advantage of everything that the school offers. But this is a pandemic and people are dying. Yes, you’re not really getting your money’s worth, but I just don’t think it matters right now. You’re here for your education and to get your degree, and if you have to do that through whatever means necessary, it’ll be fine.

Professors have COVID policies in case somebody gets sick and can鈥檛 attend class, but it was super chaotic. Some professors said if you get COVID or if you get sick, you’re kind of on your own. Other professors tried to be understanding and said, 鈥淚f you get sick, please don’t come to class.鈥� Some professors tried to record lectures, but the type of accommodations you would get were just very inconsistent.

What has been the darkest part of the pandemic for you?

Graduation was a really tough time. I don鈥檛 remember enjoying it, honestly. Just collectively, it was like a year or so of the pandemic, and then also, my family was impacted a lot financially, which was stressful. I was basically helping my two younger brothers through virtual school for the whole year. I had a lot more family responsibilities, and it took a toll on me mentally. I had trouble balancing things, especially with Zoom class sessions while my brothers needed help or were playing loudly in the other room. 

I was really burned out from applying to college. I needed a lot of , and normally that would be a time of uncertainty. The pandemic ijust made it all way worse. There wasn鈥檛 one particular bad moment. It was just cumulative. All of senior year was a really difficult time.

How did you get through the tough times?

I relied on music and audiobooks as a form of escape. I relied on my sister a lot. Even now, I text her and she tells me what’s going on back at home and cracks jokes. It was really great to have her and then also get to see her again over winter break. Even though she is my younger sister, just having her around was really helpful for me. She is my favorite person. 

My best friends from high school who I keep in touch with have also been really helpful. They are that empathetic ear for when I complain about the college administrations doing weird things with COVID. They鈥檙e going through the same confusion.

I also took a retail job at a stationery store in September 2020. Since I wasn’t going out to school every day anymore, I needed some sort of outlet away from the stress of college applications and online school. It was a really beautiful, small business that I worked at part-time and the atmosphere and my co-workers really helped me to de-stress and not stay cooped up at home for so long. 

What have you learned about yourself during this time?

I can be a lot more resilient than I thought I could be. That sounds a bit clich茅, but my senior year was pretty stressful and just not what I had planned. I learned that sometimes plans change and sometimes you have a really bad year. I have definitely gained a lot more empathy toward myself and others, understanding that this has been a traumatic time for everyone. Extending that understanding to others has been something that I’ve been able to do a lot more. 

This is beyond our control. You can’t change it. I used to try to control things, but I was in a position where a lot of the things that I thought I was going to do or things that I wanted to turn out a certain way just weren鈥檛 going to be like that. I can’t control the environment. 

What鈥檚 one thing you think no one understood about students since the beginning of school closures?

Our education system really doesn’t adapt to the needs of students as human beings 鈥� not just the needs of students, but the needs of teachers, the needs of parents. A lot of schools just don’t have the resources to adapt to something as extreme as a pandemic. That’s something that a lot of lawmakers, legislators and politicians had to reckon with.

To mark 24 months since schools shut down because of COVID-19, 蜜桃影视 spoke with parents, educators, researchers and students across the U.S. We are running some of these interviews in their entirety to give complete accounts of where we鈥檝e been and where some think we鈥檙e going.听

On leave from her job at Kaiser Permanente and trying to adjust to remote school with her two children, Toni Rochelle Baker of Oakland, California, found a new calling in the early months of the pandemic. When parent advocacy group Oakland REACH asked her to become a parent liaison, she thought, 鈥淚 know what I’m scared of and what I’m facing over here, so let me help wherever I can,鈥� she told 蜜桃影视.听

In early March, philanthropist McKenzie Scott donated to Oakland REACH to expand its work on literacy and math tutoring programs. 

In a January interview, Baker spoke about her kindergartner鈥檚 disappointment with virtual kindergarten, losing her best friend to COVID-19 and the importance of cherishing 鈥渢he little things.鈥�

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Feb. 14 was 700 days since most schools began closing. That number even took us by surprise. What鈥檚 your initial reaction to it?

Toni Rochelle Baker: 鈥嬧�媁ow, this really happened. At first, I thought it’s going to be like two weeks. My thought was, 鈥淚’m kind of happy we get to stay home. The world gets to shut down. I need a little break.鈥� What’s a break to a mother? We don’t get to have sick days.

What was the moment you realized everything changed? What were you doing before and after?

My kitchen, my dining room table had turned into a school. I had two kids at the table with computers doing virtual learning and I had no idea what that meant. They told us to sign on to some Zoom that I’ve never heard of before. All three of us were at the table because at that time I was working from home. I thought we’re all going to just sit at the table and do our work. Then I realized we’re sitting there and there are 25 other students on Zoom in kindergarten. It just got real. 

What decisions do you remember having to make in the first weeks after schools closed?

I was in shock. We were told we couldn’t leave our house. We shouldn’t be around family and friends. We should be isolated. I was happy at first because I needed the time to breathe, but on the flip side, I thought this doesn’t feel so friendly. I’m a people person. I’m used to being around people and being outside and enjoying nature. Now they’re telling us to be cautious. I thought, 鈥淚s the world coming to an end? Is this what it’s going to feel like?鈥� It was scary and confusing.

They gave us curfews in our city and told us to stock up on food. I don’t live my life like that. I’m a single mother. I go grocery shopping when I can. We get what we need. I didn’t have a deep freezer. I didn’t have extra money just laying around to spend $300 on food. I didn鈥檛 have Wi-Fi at the time because I didn’t really need it. I have my phone and now I need Wi-Fi for three people.

What has been the darkest part of the pandemic for you?

My best friend, who is like my big sister, died from COVID. I talked to her three days before she went into the hospital, not even knowing that she was sick. She didn’t know she was sick. Then she goes into the hospital and passes away. I couldn’t go see her. I couldn’t go to the hospital.

Tell me about your children. How old are they?

Talia is 9, in the third grade, and Tatum is 6, and he鈥檚 in the first grade. [Before the pandemic], my daughter was already in elementary school and my son was in preschool. Every day, I would drop my daughter off at school and my son would be with me. There was a kindergarten class across the hall from her first grade class. My son, who wasn鈥檛 even going to that school,  would go get in the line with the kindergartners. y. He would fist bump the teacher. The teacher would say, 鈥淕ive me a hug,鈥� and he would literally go to her class every single morning, sit down at carpet time, snacktime and even do the worksheet activity. This is a true story. I didn’t know that God was setting it up for him. It got to the point where they put a picture of him on the wall. 

The following year when he was ready to go to kindergarten, I got a call from that teacher, and she said, 鈥淥h my God. I got Tatum on my roster.鈥� I was so excited because they already had a bond. But he never got to go to in-person kindergarten because the pandemic happened. He already had a relationship with the teacher before the world shut down, so he was able to maneuver through kindergarten. But I never imagined not being able to walk my son to kindergarten. Those are the most valuable years of life. 

What broke my heart was for him to say, 鈥淢ommy, I hate school. I hate kindergarten. I want to go back to preschool.鈥� That hit me, and it hit me hard. He already had this perfect picture in his mind about kindergarten. It was like he was saying, 鈥淲ait, you didn’t tell me I was going to be on the computer.鈥� He didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. It broke my heart because the other kids didn’t even have what he had 鈥� that relationship. 

Did you consider holding him out of kindergarten? A lot of parents did.

Absolutely not. My children are just like me 鈥� social butterflies. I鈥檓 in love with my kids, but my kids were on my last nerves during the pandemic. Those four walls just weren鈥檛 enough.

How did you get through the tough times? Who did you rely on?

I was just relying on God. I was getting ready to see his face. Outside of God, I had Oakland REACH. I had a support system. They gave us vouchers for food. They gave my kids free computers. They gave us Wi-Fi. They had these teachers 鈥� I don鈥檛 even know where they found these beautiful teachers with these loving hearts for these kids. There was a teacher who had a grandma鈥檚 touch and a mom鈥檚 heart, and she was just so warm. This is through a computer. I鈥檝e never met this woman to this day in real life. I had the community of Oakland REACH behind me. I wouldn鈥檛 have made it without them.

I have been with them for a couple years. About two weeks before the pandemic, I was put on an administrative leave from work at Kaiser Permanente. They told me I was coming back, but then the world shut down. This parent-led group that’s like a family to me said, 鈥淲e鈥檝e got to put something in place for these families. Everybody is at home.鈥� I said, 鈥淚’m willing to help. I know what I’m scared of and what I’m facing over here so let me help wherever I can.鈥� When I first met this group, I told them if they ever had a position, to hire me because I love the work they do. I love the mission. I didn鈥檛 know the pandemic was going to open that door for me.

They created this hub and they needed family liaisons. I didn’t even know what that meant. I was teaching my kids, but I was bored as heck because I’m used to being a busybody. I started helping other families and other mothers, calling my friends and telling them about Oakland REACH.听

Describe a moment when you felt you were getting conflicting guidance or instructions.

The school didn’t even know what to do. They didn’t have a lesson plan. They said to log on to Zoom for an hour. That was it. Then you do these worksheets. You are your child’s first teacher. I do believe that. I read to my children, but [the school] is telling me I鈥檝e got to be a kindergarten teacher and a first grade teacher and do my work. It just didn’t add up to me. Then not being able to be with friends and family because we didn’t know if we were going to infect each other or if we were sick 鈥� it was just scary. It was just me and my children, and it was lonely. 

Your children changed schools last year. What led you to make that decision?

My son got to finish the end of kindergarten. I was hesitant on sending them back to school, but their mental state was so bad. They needed to go back, be with people and feel some type of routine. I didn’t know if I was making a good choice as a parent. I didn’t know if they were going to actually keep my baby safe. They were going to school in Oakland, but we live in Walnut Creek [about 16 miles away]. I’m working from home and I’m commuting to Oakland every day just so they can have some sanity. He got to graduate from kindergarten. It was a drive-through graduation. 

When this school year came around, COVID was just everywhere. The previous year, they did the COVID tests, they did the sanitizer, they did the masks, they did all these precautions. And when school started back the next semester, all of that went out the window. I let it slide the first two days of school, but by the third day, I鈥檓 like, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 going on? Where are the masks? We鈥檙e still in this stuff, and it鈥檚 worse now.鈥� I had to make an executive decision as a parent. My kid鈥檚 class got exposed and I didn鈥檛 like the safety of it. I was worrying, like I had knots in my stomach. I had to remove my children from there. [My son鈥檚] class went on quarantine for a week and then I just never took them back.

What do you feel hopeful about now?

I feel hopeful we can ascend through this. I wouldn’t say we know exactly what we’re dealing with, but we’re cautious now, we’re aware. My hope is to find some sense of normalcy. Maybe this is the new way of living, taking it day to day. Nothing is predictable. Hold onto the memories that we had in the good times because this is the new way of living. I don’t think this thing is going away any time soon.听

You don鈥檛 feel like the pandemic is ending?

We’re still in it, and a lot of people are still not taking it seriously. A lot of people are not taking precautions. A lot of people just still don’t care. I’ve lost several people to death, but people don’t want to get vaccinated. People don’t want to wear masks. People don’t want to have social distancing. People aren’t washing their hands. I can’t even go to the grocery store and taste a grape. We’ve been doing that since we were kids, eating the grapes and strawberries at the grocery store. You can’t go to Costco and get the samples. It’s the little things. 

What would you tell yourself 700 days ago, if you could go back in time, given what we know now? 

Cherish your time because time is something we’ll never get back. Smiling with my friend, looking at her actual smile without a mask, the hugs we exchanged without feeling like we were going to kill one another, holding hands and walking through the park 鈥�  it’s the little things for me. The playdates, the sleepovers, eating out. 

You work with a lot of parents. What do you think the public hasn鈥檛 understood about parents during these past two years?

The world is in a pandemic, but the educational system for Black and brown children was in a pandemic way before that. It was already hard for us. Our kids are not getting everything that they need. Trying to navigate education and figure out the best solution for these babies, the leaders of the future, is difficult. We don’t have tutors, we don’t have money, we don’t have resources, we don’t have people we could call. It’s just us, figuring it out day to day and trying to keep our babies alive, healthy and safe.

To mark 24 months since schools shut down because of COVID-19, 蜜桃影视 spoke with parents, educators, researchers and students across the U.S. We are running some of these interviews in their entirety to give complete accounts of where we鈥檝e been and where some think we鈥檙e going. 

Sonya Thomas is executive director of Nashville PROPEL, or Parents Requiring Our Public Education System to Lead. The nonprofit runs a six-week fellowship program, training parents to advocate for their children鈥檚 education and for system-wide improvements in the Metro Nashville Public Schools. In a February interview, Thomas described families still grieving from 鈥渦nimaginable loss,鈥� how the pandemic opened parents鈥� eyes to their children鈥檚 low achievement, and the critical difference between parent engagement and partnership. 

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Looking back on the past two years, what do you think has changed for families in Nashville?

Sonya Thomas: Nothing has changed. You would think that a pandemic would bring about a sense of urgency. We鈥檙e talking about decades of educational inequities, and what I’m seeing is that the system itself is not changing. It has actually grown richer in money. It has grown more savvy in messaging. And it’s hurtful. I鈥檝e got tears coming down my face now. I just had a friend who died this weekend. He couldn’t read, and I have to ask myself, 鈥淲hat has changed?鈥� 

Have parents lost trust in the public schools? 

I’ve seen an uptick in homeschooling, but I’m starting to see a trend where they can’t sustain it, so they put [their children] right back in the schools. I’ve seen an uptick of parents who want school choice and they’re looking for the [right] fit for their child because they feel stuck.

I get a lot of questions. I do hear a lot of mistrust. In Tennessee there’s a , but nobody is talking about outcomes. People are just talking about giving you more choices, but not outcomes. It saddens me, grieves me. As I learn about the landscape of education, I feel a sense of helplessness, like we’re right back to square one. 

We are no longer reading or hearing about the lives impacted by COVID. Our families, mostly Black and low-income, are dealing with unimaginable loss. We see families that have lost numerous family members. Children who have lost their sole caregiver. Parents who are living with long COVID, which impacts care of children. Grandparents and older family members who are medically fragile and send their children to school in hopes that they don’t bring COVID home. 

COVID has wreaked an additional layer of havoc on our communities and Tennessee has tied local school districts’ hands when it comes to offering families relief. Not surprisingly, Black parents and grandparents who have the opportunity are opting to keep their children home and homeschooling them.

Talk about how your organization has changed through the past two years. What were you doing before the pandemic? 

The work we were doing before the pandemic was on the ground, door-to-door, meeting for coffee, talking to parents in school buildings, in the grocery stores, in the beauty shop 鈥� you name it, we did all of those things. Then the pandemic hit, and we had to quickly pivot to a virtual setting. Last year, we met with 1,000 parents 鈥� more than the previous year. 

These meetings were about how to help children in school, how to navigate the system? 

It’s not an agenda-driven movement. What do parents care the most about? I always coach my team to ask what keeps the parent awake at night. Is it really school lunch? You have to dig deep. You have to listen attentively and intentionally to the parents because a lot of them feel really upset when they’re talking to us. You have to move them from hot anger to the true issue. We ask, 鈥淲hat would you like to be true? What is the solution?鈥�

Let’s think about that, and let’s think about that on a system-wide basis. You’re not the only parent having that problem. Are your friends and family having the same conversation? When they start connecting with other parents, they understand they’re not alone. If you just attack it from individual to individual, school building to school building, you never get anything accomplished. You never reach a solution.

We’re not really building advocacy. Parents are already advocating for their children. They’re already asking questions. But we鈥檙e finding that the system is so programmed. Go to an IEP [Individualized education program] meeting and there are six [staff members] and one of you. It’s like that across the country. We’ve been meeting with parents, listening to them, building their knowledge of how the system works. When you go into a meeting with six administrators, you know your rights, you understand what’s going on, you can ask those questions you need to ask and know when to push back.

Before the pandemic, a lot of the families didn’t realize their kids were so off track.

But during the pandemic they started to see it for themselves? 

Yes. It wasn’t just going to school, bringing the [empty] backpack home and [the parent] asking, 鈥淵ou don’t have any homework?鈥� I mean, when I asked my kids, the first thing they said was 鈥淣o.鈥� 

Now, they can see if their child wasn’t paying attention in a class or didn’t have the answers? 

It鈥檚 鈥淲hy do you not know this?鈥� You start to ask yourself, 鈥淲hy doesn’t little Ryan not know how to add or do long division?鈥� The report card is coming home and it’s got a B on it, so I’m thinking they know how to do it. Now, [parents] are noticing the deficits. Then they notice who didn鈥檛 have access to the internet. Kids went to school and didn’t have a laptop, and when they came home, they didn’t have a laptop, and then it was, 鈥淵ou don’t even have a book either? You had no laptop, you had no book 鈥� what were you doing at school for the last four years? How are you supposed to do this work at home without any of that? I can’t teach you because I had a 1.7 GPA. I don’t know how, because that’s not my expertise.鈥�

That鈥檚 when the homeschool movement began and a push for improving virtual learning. I sat in on some of those virtual learnings and there was a struggle on both ends. It was a struggle for educators, and it was a struggle for the students.

We also saw the inability of the system to use the resources, like ESSER [Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief] funds. Nashville has tried to roll out tutoring, but we鈥檙e looking at the inability to take something like high-dosage tutoring and implement it to drive outcomes. School systems are struggling with that across the country. 

Does the anger you hear from parents extend beyond the district, to government in general?

Politics in education is something that has really gotten in the way. It’s about PR campaigns. It’s about getting reelected, just taking a message and not necessarily making sure that message aligns with the safety and welfare of your citizens. I think poor judgment has caused a lot of the discourse. It is decreasing the trust in our leaders. Parents like me are concerned about our children having the academic achievement they need. The mask conversations 鈥� we were oblivious to it. What are y’all talking about? These kids can’t even read. I would have liked to see more reporting on that. Here we are, 2022, and nothing has changed. Children still can’t read. They鈥檙e still not doing well in math. They’re still not taking AP courses. All of those things are not being addressed, and I just wonder what the next excuse is going to be.

Talk a little about that reopening process after the holidays. Were there debates over keeping schools open or closed? 

I think every parent in this city, this state, this country wanted their kids back in buildings. There was just a lot of uncertainty around schools鈥� ability to keep children safe. The lack of clarity about what was safe was something that we could have avoided. It didn’t make sense to me to be so separated on the issue. I think schools are getting better at figuring out how to keep children in the classroom, but we have parents who have had children quarantined for 40 days. 

A lot of schools have gotten lax in their safety protocols, almost like COVID fatigue. I’ve seen a few schools do campaigns around getting the vaccine, but it’s hard to gauge the impact. It would be nice to follow that [vaccine] data to see if that is helping us get to a place where we’re going to be maskless. You have to have a bulls-eye. I don’t see that. 

Then you might be able to get more students vaccinated? 

Yes, and I think if people who are anti-mask had that type of leadership, we wouldn’t have the discourse, because there [would be] an endgame.

When we meet with parents, to be honest with you, there’s not a whole bunch of COVID talk. It鈥檚, 鈥淢y child is reading on the second grade level,鈥� or 鈥淢y child is being bullied in school鈥� or 鈥淭he school isn鈥檛 following the IEP program.鈥� Those are the conversations that the parents we serve are having. The mask thing 鈥� those things are being talked about in the media. I have a son here and he has worn a mask ever since they went back to school, and he has not complained. What he complains about is, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have a computer science teacher.鈥� In my house, the expectation is that you go to school to learn. You give it your all, and you bring some good outcomes home.

What do you think school districts have learned about organizations like yours or about working with parents in general?

Parent engagement is not what we want. When you engage us, what you’re doing is bringing your own agenda and you’re saying, 鈥淭his is what we’re going to do, so get with the program.鈥� That’s what engagement means, right? 鈥淚’m bringing something to you, this is what you’re going to get and you got to just walk in line with it.鈥� I think what they’re learning is that we’re not going anywhere and we want parent partnership. We don’t want to be engaged. Throw that in the trash. That has never gotten anything for our children. What we want is true partnership. We want school districts to partner with us, intentionally take our feedback and use it. That builds trust. It鈥檚 not a talking point or a PR move. 

Disclosure: The City Fund provides financial support to and 蜜桃影视.

To mark the 24 months since schools shut down because of COVID-19, 蜜桃影视 spoke with parents, educators, researchers and students across the U.S. We are running some of these interviews in their entirety to give complete accounts of where we鈥檝e been and where some think we鈥檙e going. 

Susan Enfield is finishing her 10th and final year as superintendent of the Highline Public Schools, near Seattle. A for chief in the San Diego Unified School District, Enfield has been a confidant for fellow chiefs and outspoken about the burdens placed on district and school leaders during the pandemic. In a January interview, Enfield described how she鈥檚 relied on her 鈥渟ister supes鈥� for support and said watching students return to learning in the classroom has been 鈥渁 tonic for the soul.鈥� She also spoke about how state and federal leaders have 鈥渁bdicated鈥� their responsibility during the pandemic, how educators from other countries are shocked that U.S. principals conduct contact tracing and spending weekends on her couch.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Feb. 14 marked 700 days since most schools began closing. That number even took us by surprise. What鈥檚 your initial reaction to it?

Susan Enfield: I didn’t know that 700 days could both seem so long and so short simultaneously. The last couple of years have felt like a lifetime in and of themselves and yet at the same time it feels like it’s gone by in a flash. I think about all that we have accomplished and all that we’ve adapted to, but what I really am sort of fixing my sights on is the next 700 days.  

What was the moment you realized everything changed? What were you doing before and after?

A very good friend of mine who works in the , which was the first in the United States to close, called me, end of February, and said, 鈥淚 think we’re going to close.鈥� And I said, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e nuts. What are you talking about?鈥� And he said, 鈥淎nd I think the rest of you won’t be far behind.鈥� I said, 鈥淣o way, there’s no way they’re going to close schools.鈥� I mean I really was incredulous.

In the ensuing days and weeks, it became abundantly clear that indeed, we were going to close, and so I quickly shifted. I think as leaders, you shift from your initial emotional response to putting your strategic hat on and preparing and figuring [it] out. Our last day with students was March 13, and so the week before that, I was watching what was happening, and I knew closure was coming. Our state hadn’t announced it yet, but I knew it was coming. 

I went to my chief operating officer and said, 鈥淕et prepared meals in place.鈥� I went to my chief technology officer and said, 鈥淟et’s figure out what we’re going to do around Internet access. Get as many hotspots as you can.鈥� I went to my teaching and learning team and said, 鈥淪tart getting packets together.鈥�

We all mobilized so that when we eventually did have to close, we were as prepared as you could be. At least we had a bit of a head start. I think that’s the luck of geography. I’m in a region that was so close to the initial districts that closed. Of course, we thought we were planning for a matter of weeks. I don’t think any of us envisioned months-long, a year-and-a-half long of students being out of school.

The last couple of years have meant every day is a fresh challenge, and I don’t think anything surprises us anymore.

What other decisions do you remember having to make in the first weeks after schools closed?

Superintendents have a wonderful sense of camaraderie. We’re kindred spirits. There’s a tremendous sense of collegial support and that predates the pandemic. But boy, did the pandemic really heighten that. I was in constant communication prior to that closure with districts in my region and South King County of Seattle. There is a group of superintendents, and our districts all serve very similar demographics. We Have a lot of transition of students and staff between our districts. So we really try to make decisions in unison because it makes the most sense for our families. It minimizes the chaos. Once we heard that Seattle had made the decision to close, that’s when we knew we had to make the decision. We reached out to the governor and the Department of Health and said, 鈥淪eattle made its decision. We really need the state to make a decision and that would be what’s best, but we’re going to act on our own if you don’t.鈥�

We really had to take matters into our own hands. That’s been a huge theme of this pandemic. School districts have taken on tremendous responsibility. Others have abdicated their leadership, and I use that term very, very deliberately. 

The governor said he would make his decision by the next day. It was a Thursday, and I remember this distinctly. When the decision came out, it was early afternoon and Friday was a non-student day. That meant we were sending students home that Thursday and they weren’t going to come back to school for  鈥� at the time, we thought several weeks, but what ended up being longer. I called my principal supervisors in and said, 鈥淵ou need to get to all of your principals, and you need to tell them to get to teachers and to end instruction early so that they can explain to students to the best of their ability what’s happening.鈥�

We have so many students in our district 鈥� this is not unique to Highline and this is not true for every child, I want to be clear 鈥� who think of  school as a safe place. It’s a haven. It’s where they feel connected and supported with their friends and their teachers. [It was troubled by the] thought of sending them home and them not being able to process with their teachers why they weren’t coming back on Monday. I think that was one of the things I’m really glad we did to minimize some of the trauma. 

The greatest gift we give to children is a sense of predictability, a sense of calm, a sense of what is known. For children to be thrust into chaos and the unknown is one of the most traumatizing things that can happen to them. Our goal was to give them a sense of calm, that it was going to be OK.

What has been the darkest part of the pandemic for you?

We lost two middle school students to suicide early in the pandemic. I’m grateful that did not continue, though that was my greatest concern. We lost staff members [to COVID] as well. The loss of human life has been the darkest part 鈥� knowing how hard this was and how out of my control it was to do more to help.

When we were handing out meals one day, a woman drove up. I would always ask, 鈥淗ow are your children doing?鈥� She started crying and said, 鈥淣ot good.鈥� I had her pull over to the side, and I said, 鈥淭ell me what’s going on.鈥� She is a grandmother and she said her grandson had special needs and he had regressed so quickly within a couple of months that he would walk in circles around the kitchen and not talk to anybody. She was literally begging me to do something and there was nothing really that I could do. At that particular moment, we weren鈥檛 in any way equipped to bring even our students with special needs in. Nobody was coming back yet. It was those moments you realize how hard this was on people in so many ways, and that as a leader, a fellow community member, a fellow human being, there wasn’t more you could do to alleviate their pain and suffering. I think those were the darkest moments.

What have you done to take care of yourself, to get through the rough times?

Early on, a group of female superintendents from around the country 鈥� we refer to ourselves as 鈥渟ister supes鈥� 鈥�  had a standing Sunday afternoon Zoom where we would check in. Sometimes we would do a book study, but a lot of times it was, 鈥淗ow are you doing? What’s going on?鈥� Going for walks with my husband and frankly allowing myself to feel pain and to grieve. I think as leaders we do need to inspire hope and let people know it’s going to be OK and be strong. But we also have to sort of balance that strength and courage with vulnerability. There were weekends where I didn’t get off the couch. I’ve been pretty honest about that in conversations with others. I said to someone once, 鈥淚f one more person says, 鈥榊ou got this,鈥� I’m gonna smack 鈥榚m.鈥� A year and a half ago, I didn’t 鈥済ot this,鈥� and [people] were lying. I’m sorry, they were just lying.

I don’t think we do ourselves, our colleagues or anyone any service by faking it. I think superintendents need to feel and care for themselves and share those feelings. I’ve been pretty honest and vulnerable about my struggle. It’s also in some ways reassuring to staff, like 鈥淥h my gosh, it’s OK that I’m feeling like my life is imploding because the superintendent feels that way.鈥� You say, 鈥淵ou know, I was in a fetal position on my couch this weekend, but I did what I needed to do to take care of myself so I could show up on Monday. We’re going to get through this, and the way we’re going to get through this is one day at a time, moving forward together.鈥� It’s strength, courage and vulnerability 鈥� that mix. It’s not equal parts everyday. Sometimes it’s heavier on one side.

What gives you hope now, 700 days later?

That’s hard, because the last few weeks with the Omicron surge have in some ways been even harder than those initial days. I think back to spring of 2020 and the planning that we had to do. My team and I never worked so hard in our lives. It was 24/7, figuring out how we were going to do a hybrid model. I have an extraordinary team, but it pushed us to our limits. I thought that was as hard as it’s ever gonna be, but there’s been something about the last few weeks coming out of the winter break and coming perilously close to going remote again. It鈥檚 a little harder to find hope right now. I think we thought we’d be in a very different place. That said, I do feel like we’ve turned a corner in this most recent surge.

People struggle hearing this, but we are moving into the endemic phase of this, and that may not be what everyone wants to hear. We are moving into living with, rather than living in fear of the virus. I am hopeful that in the coming weeks and months, we are going to collectively come to that understanding and adapt to a way of life that will be far more familiar 鈥� I don’t use the term normal anymore 鈥� but a way of living, a way of working that will feel more familiar to what we knew prior to the pandemic. I think entering that phase gives me hope.

As hard as it’s been working in schools during this time, I also have the great gift of going into schools and seeing children, educators, nutrition services, transportation workers and custodians who are doing such extraordinary work. Nothing gives you more hope than seeing kindergartners engaged in their learning, so happy to be in their school with their classmates and their teachers. It’s a tonic for the soul. When you’ve committed your life to working in public education, you get up every day believing the impossible is possible. We’ve accomplished things over the last 700 days that if someone had told us three years ago, 鈥淚n about six months, you’re going to be doing these,鈥� we would have said there’s no way we could do that. We did it and we’re stronger for it. I think we could all use a nice vacation, but we’re stronger for it.

What’s one thing about superintendents that you think nobody has understood from the beginning of this crisis?

That we鈥檙e people first. I had school staff that were very upset with me during the period when we were bringing students back to school in hybrid. I had a meeting with them. They wanted to have a healing conversation, and the prompt, as we went around the room was, 鈥淲hat do you need people here to know?鈥� I was part of the circle, so I got to answer, and I said, 鈥淚 need you to know that I’m a person first and a superintendent second. So when you are attacking the superintendent, when you are attacking the district, you are attacking me. I bleed like the rest of them. I feel like you do.鈥� I think this notion that superintendents need to be superhuman and that somehow we make these incredibly difficult decisions that we know have tremendous impact on the lives of children and families in a way that is capricious or uncaring is so far from the truth. 

There isn’t a decision that any superintendent I know has made over the past year that they haven’t agonized over. I mean agonized over. Superintendents are used to making hard decisions and taking the hits, but in so many instances, there was no good decision, so I was choosing the least bad option available. That was tough and I’ve seen it take a toll on my colleagues. Some have truly suffered. I’m very fortunate. I have not had that level of attack. Superintendents are thinking, feeling, human beings who are doing this work because we care deeply about our children and our community. We’re trying to do right by them, and we get it wrong sometimes, absolutely. We’re human, but we acknowledge when we get it wrong, and we come back and try to make it right. I think that’s all we can ask of our leaders 鈥� honesty and a sense of continuing to try to do better.

Describe a moment when you felt you were getting conflicting guidance or conflicting instructions. What did you ultimately do and why?

It’s been commonplace. That’s been our reality, at least here in Washington State, but I know we’re not alone: trying to make sense of [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance, Department of Health guidance, local public health guidance, state superintendent guidance. It sometimes does conflict, especially with respect to distancing and contact tracing. Sometimes those don’t align. The CDC may come out with something and we’ve been following our Department of Health guidelines that don’t readily adapt. My families want to know why we’re not doing what the CDC is saying. Well, we’re being consistent in following the Department of Health. It puts districts in a very difficult position because our families and staff are looking to us for answers, and we are trying to give them the best answers possible, but because the guidance sometimes conflicts and quite frankly is ever-changing. it’s sometimes hard to give them the clarity and the certainty they’re looking for, and people are desperate for certainty in any way shape or form they can find it.

I want to be clear. I will lay plenty of criticism at the feet of those in leadership who I believe did not do what they needed to do and did not own what they needed to own. That said, I also understand that everybody, regardless of your position, was figuring this out as we went along and there was no road map for this. I get that. I’ve been very clear that we need to give one another grace, and that goes for our elected officials and Department of Health officials. I believe they’re doing the best they can under difficult circumstances because this is a constantly changing and evolving and fluid situation. However, I do believe that school districts have had to take on a tremendous amount of leadership that should have been handled at other levels of the state and federal government.

My father once told me that when you’re backed into a corner you do the best you can and make the best decision you can. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong, and we were all backed into a massive corner in this pandemic, and we got it right and we got it wrong. For example, contact tracing. Why in heaven’s name were school officials ever put in the position to be responsible for contact tracing? That’s a public health responsibility. When I talked to educators in other countries, their jaws were on the ground. That continues to take a huge toll on my principals and it’s so time consuming.

I work with the best team of professionals at every level of my system, anywhere in this country. I’ll put them up against anybody, and on many occasions they’ve come close to the breaking point. As superintendent, I have to make sure that I’m not pushing them past that breaking point. I think at the end of the day, we’ll come back and wonder if there was a better way. 

Did you ever think of quitting and, if so, why didn’t you?

I don’t think I ever thought of quitting. There were moments where I thought I don’t know if I can do this, but that’s different than quitting. I never said, 鈥淚’m out of here,鈥� and my decision to leave Highline was not a response to the pandemic. I’m ready for a fresh challenge and Highline is ready for a fresh leader. I didn’t think of quitting. That doesn’t make me super strong and special and courageous. I think I was blessed to go through the past 700 days in Highline. I’ve said many times, I’d rather not have to live through a global pandemic, but if I did, Highline is the place I鈥檇 want to be. I’ve taken my fair share of hits with the rest of them, but my board has been so supportive, and so has my staff, my families, my community andmy union leadership for the most part. Of course, there have been disagreements, but I think people have really understood that we’re all doing our best and we’re all in this together. I hope they’ll look back and say I did right by them.

Putting a human face to this is really important, especially in the online era, it’s super easy to type into the chat box or the Q&A box. I remember doing one of our webinars on returning to school and bringing staff back in hybrid, because almost half of my families wanted to send their kids back, and I had a responsibility to make that happen. One staff member typing in the chat box wrote, 鈥淧lease tell me how long it will take for my husband to receive my death benefits after I die because you forced me back to school.鈥� 

I finally said in a long speech at one meeting that you can disagree with me, you can even dislike me. That’s fine. But I ask you to sit back and be honest with yourself and your criticism. I’ve lived in this community for almost a decade now. Whether you like me or not, you know me, and I don’t think anyone would honestly say that I don’t genuinely care about the children and families in this community. I may get it wrong and you may not like it, but to say that I don’t care 鈥� that I have to take issue with.

To mark 24 months since schools shut down because of COVID-19, 蜜桃影视 spoke with parents, educators, researchers and students across the U.S. We are running some of these interviews in their entirety to give complete accounts of where we鈥檝e been and where some think we鈥檙e going. 

Michael Mulgrew is president of the United Federation of Teachers, which became aware of COVID-19 before many parents and educators had even heard of it. The union repeatedly clashed with former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over safety precautions and reopening schedules, but union leaders also took charge of some mitigation measures, such as testing school ventilation systems. In January, he spoke with 蜜桃影视 about how a lack of planning for remote learning led to a 鈥渕ad scramble鈥� to provide services, the union鈥檚 efforts to offer comfort during the darkest, earliest days of the pandemic, and what he鈥檚 learned since.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Feb. 14 will be 700 days since most schools began closing. That number even took us by surprise. What鈥檚 your initial reaction to it?

Michael Mulgrew: It feels like 7,000 days.

What was the moment you realized everything changed? What were you doing before and after?

We had started tracking this during the Christmas holidays. We had some teachers who were in China then. We had them quarantine when they came back, and then we really started tracking it and talking to our own infectious disease doctors as it kept building. It then became like a fast track, like every day was like five days, and the pressure kept building. I didn’t realize I was so involved with so many fast decisions and changing information. I didn’t realize it until March 16th, the day after the New York City Public Schools closed. I was in my car driving around the city and I was shocked that the streets were empty. That’s when I realized it wasn’t science fiction. 

What decisions do you remember having to make in the first weeks after schools closed?

The hardest thing was, how do we set up? How do we get the equipment that teachers need? How do we get them trained? We hadn’t done anything. There was a small pilot of what you would call a virtual learning program involving, literally, like 15 teachers. That was it for the entire city.

It was a mad scramble to get everyone trained quickly on how to get their classrooms up, then going through how do we teach parents how to help their kids. It was non-stop. It was hundreds of decisions every day trying to figure things out, moving people from place to place. Even though everything was closed, we were still moving stuff like laptops and iPads, trying to get them to our members鈥� houses so they had something to work off.听

What has been the darkest part of the pandemic for you?

We were one of the last school systems to close, even though we’re in New York City, which at that point was ground zero. We had to fight to close the school system. It was a big, ugly fight, especially that last week. We set up a virtual executive board to meet every Monday night, so we could all keep our communications up, and I had to read the names of our members who passed away. I had to make the phone calls to those families. We lost a lot of members, and I always think that if we could have closed earlier, how many more would we not have lost.

What do you feel hopeful about now?

The people. I saw people who were absolutely afraid still figure out a way to get up and get moving. There was no book on how you do remote learning. There will be now.

I watched teachers start mailing supplies to each one of their children’s houses and figuring out different ways to get the children engaged. I did town halls with parents. I started in the middle of April [2020], and the parents were crying with me, telling me, 鈥淚 always knew that my child鈥檚 teacher cared about my kids, but I never realized they really loved them.鈥� The teachers were saying the same things: 鈥淚’ve gotten to know my students鈥� entire family and they鈥檙e beautiful people.鈥�

That’s the stuff that gives me hope, because when people had to connect, they started connecting in those ways. They really helped each other get through what was probably the darkest time of this pandemic

What鈥檚 one thing you think no one has understood about you or about unions since the beginning of school closures? 

The whole time it was about protecting the school and that means us and the children. We had to fight to close our schools, and then we had to fight to open our schools. We never said no. We always said we wanted to open the schools, but at that point, we had learned that we’re not gonna listen to doctors unless they’re independent. Thankfully, we were able to get access to that, and our doctors designed a plan for us to open schools safely.

We all know pandemic information changes all the time. We should have opened on time last year, but the mayor didn’t understand that it was real for us. We were going to do it the right way, because we weren’t going to subject ourselves or our students and their families to any more danger for going to school. The last thing we wanted was people sick because they went to school or putting their lives or their families鈥� or their school communities鈥� lives in jeopardy. Basically, 35 percent of the parents felt comfortable with their child going to school. This is over a year ago. Thankfully it’s much much higher than that now.

Every school in New York City ended up with a group of four or five teachers who actually set their school up, put up the signs, did all the training of the other teachers on how to do certain things 鈥� how to wear their masks, how to fit them properly, how to direct the children, what to do when they’re eating and how you do your spacing, and getting kids in and out and on and off the bus. There were over 3,000 volunteers who did that and trained their schools to do it. Nobody talks about that stuff. There was no pay involved. It’s not in our contract. It was just: If we want to be safe and we want our schools open, we have to do this. And they went and did it.

Ventilation. Oh my God. We actually were able to fix ventilation. I’ll never forget last winter. The buildings were built after the last pandemic. They have these really big windows. They actually were built that way so you could open them to keep ventilation in case there was another pandemic. That literally became part of the code for schools after the pandemic of 1918. For a period of time, the teachers kept opening up the windows the whole way and it’s like 7 degrees out. So we had to produce this video for all the teachers about, 鈥淣o, you don’t have to do that. You only have to open like half the windows about 3 inches each and you’ll be fine.鈥� This year, one of the first cold days in January, I was in a school, and one of the teachers had the windows open a large way. And I’m looking at the windows and she touched my arm, and she goes, 鈥淚 know I don’t have to open it that much, but my team teacher for 20 years died of COVID a year ago.鈥� I said, 鈥淵ou keep that window open anyway you want.鈥�

Describe a moment when you felt you were getting conflicting guidance or instructions. What did you end up doing and why?

The opening of this year was probably the most frustrating because once again everyone thinks we’re getting through the pandemic. We go from 6 feet to 3 feet [social distancing]. We opened the schools last year. We had no vaccines. We went back into work; we did what we needed to do. Now, the vaccines are available. Everybody wants schools back open. We agree. And then all of a sudden, the New York City Department of Health starts issuing new guidance. Three feet is no longer 3 feet. Three feet basically becomes . And then, you fight, you fight, you fight.

Even in the beginning, I’ll never forget having meetings where the city doctors are telling us, 鈥淚t’s gonna be nothing but a cold 鈥nd the schools could remain open. The kids are gonna be fine. They’re not gonna get it and we’ll create herd immunity and we’ll be safer faster than everybody else.鈥� Literally, that’s the conversation we were having with the mayor and his doctors. And our doctors are saying to us the absolute opposite. They said, 鈥淟isten, children might not be getting it at this point in time, but this is a serious virus, and people are gonna die.鈥�

That was probably the big conflict, that first one.

Do we understand what works in virtual learning better than we did two years ago? Why or why not?

We never said it was going to be the be-all-and-end-all. It was always a way for us to keep in contact, to keep our students engaged. Through that March and the end of that school year, it really was more of a lifeline between teachers and students and their families. Remember, nobody was leaving their house or apartment. There was no such thing as a school day at that point. Teachers would be teaching at 6:00 in the morning. Teachers would be teaching at 8:00 at night. Teaching was all over the place. They did whatever they needed to do to reach the parents, especially the younger children when the parent could be there.

The following year is where you learn a little bit more about it. For 65 percent of those students, the parents said their child is going to work remotely. We never should have had each teacher [figuring out remote learning] on their own. We thought it should have been a more centralized process, deploying the best practices we know. But the department still felt 鈥� because I gotta be honest, they just didn’t want to manage it 鈥� it’s better off to just let every teacher in school do their own thing.

We’ve learned a lot. One of the things we found out is the majority of students really do regress in a remote setting, which we completely expected. There was a small percentage of students who actually thrived in remote. So to me as a teacher, that says there’s something there we have to look at, because if these students who were not doing well when they were going to school 鈥� and there’s all sorts of different reasons for that 鈥� all of a sudden did really well in a remote setting, we have to look at this going into the future.

But this is not an online college course. That鈥檚 what everyone always thought: 鈥淲e’ll put the camera in the middle of the classroom.鈥� It does not work in K-12 education.

How has this crisis changed your union? 

It’s made us stronger. We communicate better than we ever did before. We鈥檙e using technology in ways that it probably would have taken us a decade to get to. We started doing these virtual town hall things. There was no such thing in any union before. It was always, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e a union, you have to come in person.鈥� There were 17,000 and 23,000 and 28,000, then over 30,000 people 鈥� there would just be massive town halls with the members. It really was comforting to all of us. That was comforting to me as their president.

We don’t have all the answers, and let’s just all be there for each other and we’re doing the best we can. That’s when we we decided 鈥� it was probably in the middle of May after we first shut down 鈥� we’re going to do three things: We want to open our schools again, we’ll never listen to any doctors on anyone鈥檚 payroll again, and we鈥檒l fight like hell to make sure that we’re doing what the independent doctors tell us to do. 

Did you ever feel like quitting or think of quitting?

Of course I did, and I think most people in this profession thought of quitting throughout this thing. There were some really, really tough times. The only way out of this is to go through it, and I don’t think any of us expected it to go on this long.

In the beginning, we lost close to 100 members, and then over the next year, we did go over 100. That was really difficult, because everyone thinks, 鈥淲hat else could I have done?鈥� Thankfully, we were able to really use the power of our union to try to get the families support. Remember, we also represent over 3,000 private sector nurses who work in hospitals. We set up a food delivery service for them because no one was doing anything for them at that point. At downtown NYU Langone [hospital] and Staten Island University Hospital South 鈥� you would go there and they would get their food and you would see what they were going through. They’re like, 鈥淲e gotta be in [the hospital]. We gotta do what we have to do for these patients.鈥� I saw the same thing happening with the teachers when I’m on Zooms with them and on town halls. [They would say], 鈥淭his is tough. No one prepared us for this, but could you help me get [something for my students]? This will help. There’s a child I can’t reach because he lives with his grandmother.鈥澛燭hat’s what fueled me.

What would you tell yourself 700 days ago, if you could go back in time, given what we know now? 

Trust the members at all times, the members and the parents. Just keep standing up and fight, fight, fight as hard as hell on everything you know once you get the information. You need to just keep your head down and keep swinging. Like in any crisis, there’ve been some really good people who have stepped up in all sorts of ways. Have faith in people who dedicate their lives to either health care or education. Anytime there’s a problem or I鈥檓 in a foxhole, I want to be with those people. 

That鈥檚 how long it鈥檚 been since more than half the nation鈥檚 schools crossed into the pandemic era.

On March 16, 2020, districts in 27 states, encompassing almost 80,000 schools, closed their doors for the first long educational lockdown. Within nine days, the nation鈥檚 remaining districts followed suit.

Since then, schools have reopened, closed and reopened again. The effects have been immediate 鈥� students lost parents; teachers mourned fallen colleagues 鈥� and hopelessly abstract, as educators weighed 鈥�pandemic learning loss,鈥� the sometimes crude measure of COVID鈥檚 impact on students鈥� academic performance.

To mark what will soon stretch into a third spring of educational disruption, 蜜桃影视 spoke with educators, parents, students and researchers about what Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University鈥檚 Edunomics Lab, called 鈥渁 seismic interruption to education unlike anything we鈥檝e ever seen.鈥� They talked movingly, often unsparingly, about their missteps and occasional triumphs, their moments of despair and fragile optimism for the future. [You can scan through our expanding archive of testimonials right here.]

As spring approaches, there are additional reasons to be hopeful. More children are being vaccinated. Mask mandates are lifting. But even if the pandemic recedes and a 鈥渘ew normal鈥� emerges, there are clear signs that the issues surfaced during this period will linger. COVID heightened inequities long baked into the American educational system. The social contract between parents and schools has frayed. Teachers are burning out.

鈥淭here are kind of two camps,鈥� said Beth Lehr, an assistant principal of Sahuarita High School, south of Tucson, Arizona. 鈥淭here’s the one camp of 鈥楾his too shall pass,鈥� and then there’s the other camp of 鈥榊eah, it’s going to pass, but I don’t know if I want to wait for it to.鈥欌��

But none of this was on anyone鈥檚 mind on March 16, 2020.

The World Health Organization had a pandemic only five days earlier. Two days after that, then-President Donald Trump called a . And in the Northshore School District, a system of 22,000 students northeast of Seattle, schools had already been closed for over a week. In late February, one of its schools shut for deep cleaning after an employee traveled out of the country with a family member who had become ill. The district鈥檚 closure offered a glimpse into what many thought would be a short-term disruption.

鈥業 realized it wasn鈥檛 science fiction鈥�

Susan Enfield, superintendent of Highline Public Schools in Washington: A very good friend of mine who works in the called me, end of February, and said, 鈥淚 think we’re going to close 鈥� and I think the rest of you won’t be far behind.鈥� I said, 鈥淣o way, there’s no way they’re going to close schools.鈥� I mean, I really was incredulous.

Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education: I was having brunch with my sister in Kirkland, Washington, when the news broke that there were multiple cases and deaths at the Life Care Center nursing home just a few miles away. My husband sent me a text telling me to get out of Kirkland right away, and everything felt ominous.

Marguerite Roza, Seattle-based director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University: My daughter and I were driving to go pick up some fish for dinner. In the car, they announced the governor’s order 鈥� it was with a bigger lockdown kind of order 鈥� and we walked into the fish market place, and the guy behind the counter goes, 鈥淗ave you heard anything yet?鈥� We were like, 鈥淵ep.鈥� And he goes, 鈥淲hat did he say?鈥� We said, 鈥淟ockdown.鈥� And he [grunts], 鈥淯hhhh.鈥� Already, the streets were pretty empty, and the first person we talked to was the guy packaging up our salmon.

Tony Sanders, superintendent, School District U-46, near Chicago: I was asked to serve on a statewide panel of superintendents 鈥� to provide guidance to school district leaders across the state. Our first meeting, held on Sunday, March 15, was attended by prominent legislators, state health officials, the deputy governor for education and state superintendent of schools. Hearing the projections of worst-case scenarios should we not 鈥渇latten the curve鈥� was surreal. At the conclusion of that meeting, where we worked to socially distance, but had no idea yet about the need to wear a mask, I made the four-hour journey home in complete silence and disbelief.

Michael Mulgrew, president, United Federation of Teachers, New York City: We started tracking this during the Christmas holiday. We had some teachers who were in China. We had them quarantine when they came back. I didn’t realize [things had changed] until March 16, the day after the New York City public schools closed. I was in my car driving around the city and I was shocked that the streets were empty. That’s when I realized it wasn’t science fiction. 

Bridgette Adu-Wadier: freshman, Northwestern University, graduate of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandra, Virginia: By the end of March, Gov. Ralph Northam basically announced that all the schools would be closed due to the pandemic for the rest of the school year. I watched the livestream, and I was texting my friends. One of them was actually really upset and crying about it, just because it was such a stressful situation to be in 鈥� like, things are never going to be the same again.

鈥榃e were completely unprepared鈥�

Parents, superintendents and others 鈥� many in a state of shock 鈥� had little time to plan as events unfolded at frightening speed.

Toni Rochelle Baker: family liaison for Oakland REACH, a parent advocacy organization, Walnut Creek, California: They gave us curfews in our city and then they told us to stock up for food. I don’t live my life like that. I’m a single mother. I go grocery shopping when I can. We get what we need, and now you’re telling me to stock up on food? That was scary. I didn’t have a deep freezer. I didn’t have extra money just laying around [to] go spend $300 on food. I didn’t have Wi-Fi at the time because I didn’t really need it. I have my phone, and now I need Wi-Fi for three people.

Maria Amado, family child care provider, Hartford, Connecticut, who opened her program for school-age children during remote learning: [Translated from Spanish] Educators, including myself, sewed masks for the children, and we looked for resources to support each other. Some gave fabric to make the masks, others the elastic. It may not have been in big ways, but they all contributed. And now I remember this and think, 鈥淲here did I find the time to make the masks?鈥� It was the adrenaline to survive, knowing this would protect me and I had to do it.

Tony Sanders: We needed to place emergency orders for Chromebooks and other devices. We had to completely transform our approach to food service so that by March 17 we were feeding our students and community at food pickup locations throughout the district. There were decisions that had to be made that I would never have thought of. We had to determine how we would ensure employees would continue to be paid. During the first days of the pandemic, I recall sitting alone in my office. The view from my window was a large parking lot with one vehicle.

Sherrice Dorsey-Smith, deputy director of programs, planning and grants, San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families: I had to figure out how we were going to open what we called emergency child and youth centers. These were spaces for essential workers to leave their children for the day while they were at work. Child care centers were closed, schools were closed, but some people needed or were required to continue working. They needed a safe place for their children during the day. I had to figure out how to get breakfast, lunch and snacks to all the sites. I remember working through the weekend nonstop, literally 48 hours.

Michael Mulgrew: It was a mad scramble to get everyone trained quickly how to get their classrooms up. How do we teach parents how to help their kids? It was non-stop. It was hundreds of decisions every day. Even though everything was closed, we were still moving stuff literally, like laptops and iPads and different things, trying to get them to our members鈥� houses so they had something to work off. [Former] Mayor [Bill de Blasio] had resolved never to close the schools, so he would not allow the Department of Ed to put any contingency plans in place. On the Friday before the schools closed, at 3 p.m., the mayor would be banging on the table saying he was going to keep the schools open. And that Sunday afternoon he closed the schools. So we were completely unprepared.

School, interrupted

As the deadline for lifting lockdown kept slipping away, some took longer to grasp the new reality: Life wouldn’t be returning to normal anytime soon.

Mariela Garcia: freshman at the University of Houston, graduate of Eastwood Academy High School in Houston: It was during spring break when we ended up having two weeks instead of one. And two weeks turned into three. This went on for a couple of weeks before we noticed that we weren鈥檛 going to go back to school. Stores started closing down, schools started closing, many things started closing because everyone was scared. That鈥檚 when I noticed that this was becoming very serious.

Dale Chu, senior visiting fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute: I realized everything had changed 鈥� on May 10, 2020. How do I remember the date? My at-the-time 5-year-old daughter 鈥� after nearly two months on Zoom 鈥� drew a picture of her class for me. Seeing Kellan鈥檚 classmates through her eyes on a Zoom grid really hit things home for me.

Ricardo Miguel Martinez, president, Latino Parents for Public Schools, Atlanta: I had people worried about getting kicked out, evicted, lights being turned off, not having groceries. These are people who weren’t making excuses. The people who are fighting masks and stuff, they have a choice to either follow the data or not follow the data. God bless them in their fight. But these people didn’t have a choice. They got thrown into the chicken factories and died. They got thrown into manufacturing and died so that we could have chicken at the grocery store.

Mourning the lost

Some felt the pandemic鈥檚 effects up close: sick parents, dead teachers. This month, the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. , with an estimated 2,200 of them educators. Many of the effects have been harder to measure, but are certain to leave lasting damage. Recent four out of five secondary school principals experienced 鈥渇requent job-related stress鈥� last year, and educator surveys show over students鈥� mental health, including anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

Susan Enfield: We lost two middle school students to suicide early in the pandemic. We lost staff members.

Michael Mulgrew: I had to read the names of our members who passed away. I had to make the phone calls to those families. We lost a lot of members, and I always think that if we could have closed earlier, how many more would we not have lost.

Shawnie Bennett, a COVID-19 investigator, Oakland, California: I lost my brother [from COVID] in May of 2020. He was only 32. As a family, when we would gather to try and go see him or just sit outside the hospital window. We were afraid to touch each other, so it was hard to comfort each other. [My son] came home [from college] for Christmas, and he saw me so weak and broken. He had always seen a very strong Black woman as a mother. I was gone, emotionally wrecked, mentally, physically, and it broke him down to the point that he did not want to return to school. He’s in Atlanta now, got an apartment and he’s just trying to figure life out. He was very close to my brother. That loss, on top of what he physically saw me go through, was detrimental for him.

David Brown, principal, Hillcrest Heights Elementary, Prince George鈥檚 County, Maryland: Family vacations, going out to eat, visiting family 鈥� I think all of those things disappearing created a milieu where it was tough to manage. And when you’re in charge of leading a large group of individuals, how do you help and support them? How do you keep your teachers upbeat? Because the mental health of every adult who receives a paycheck from our county impacts the mental health and the wellness of children who are just simply here to learn. I remember there was discussion that we’ll be able to eat and enjoy ourselves come the 4th of July, and then that didn’t happen. You’re holding out hope that it’s going away, but it’s not, and [you鈥檙e] trying to remain that positive, invigorating leader that the principal has to be.

Bridgette Adu-Wadier: Graduation was a really tough time. I don’t remember enjoying it, honestly. Just collectively, it was like a year or so of the pandemic, and then also, my family was impacted a lot financially, which was stressful. I was basically helping my two younger brothers through virtual school for the whole year. I had a lot more family responsibilities, and it took a toll on me mentally. I had trouble balancing things, especially with Zoom class sessions while my brothers needed help or were playing loudly in the other room. I relied on music and audiobooks as a form of escape.

Ashiley Lee, tech and operations coordinator, Para Los Ni帽os, a Los Angeles charter school, where last year she taught seventh-grade history: I remember being in a class full of blank screens, because we no longer required cameras on, and then after that, putting my grades in for the semester and realizing just how low they were. I was trying to brainstorm with my team: What is something, anything, we can do to encourage our students to at least get the one assignment we post a week in by the end of the semester? My kids, it was so funny, we started a joke where I would call on a student to answer a question and they wouldn’t be there 鈥� kind of a ghost in the call. And the kids would comment in the chat, 鈥淕hostbuster! Ms. Lee caught him.”

Marguerite Roza: The hardest part was when it looked like there was no reopening school. This was November of 2020. The governor had established these metrics by which you could open schools, and as far out as the modelers had modeled, it was never going to reopen. My then-high school daughter [a cross-country runner] was getting more and more discouraged. You could just see it was really not healthy for her, just to be home all alone every day. And you, as a parent, start to feel desperate. I used to listen to press conferences constantly. You could see that there wasn’t going to be any movement. I was very worried about her. The sports season had come and gone. School was online. I think that was probably the darkest time, which coincides in Seattle with it being really dark, [at] like 3:45. 

Mariela Garcia: Hundreds and thousands of people were dying because of COVID, and I was scared. I remember I had no interactions with the outside world for 鈥� I kid you not 鈥� at least three months straight. My family just did not want to leave our home. At the time, we had to adjust to online school. I had no Wi-Fi or laptop at the time, so it was hard to be in class and even submit assignments from my phone. It was definitely a very hard time, especially when family members started to get COVID.

Toni Baker: I had two kids at the table with computers doing virtual learning and I had no idea what that meant. They told us to sign on to some Zoom that I’ve never heard of before. I’m in love with my kids, but my kids were on my last nerves during the pandemic. Those four walls just weren’t enough.

Couch sitting, watching 鈥楩riends鈥�

The monotony of being stuck at home sparked new coping strategies: Cooking, at-home workouts, walking the dog 鈥� and of course . Some took long couch breaks. Others became entrepreneurs. Mariela Garcia started baking and ran a business from a local farmer鈥檚 market.

Mariela Garcia: My family actually bought the DVD set of 鈥淔riends鈥� and we just watched 鈥淔riends鈥� over and over and over. We’ve already seen each episode at least 10 times. We just keep it playing throughout the whole day because we don’t have any Wi-Fi or anything at home. I would not have started my business if it wasn’t for being in quarantine. I had so much more free time. I hate being that person, but the first time I ever tried my empanadas, they came out great, and I have not changed anything. 

Susan Enfield: A group of female superintendents from around the country 鈥� we refer to ourselves as 鈥渟ister supes鈥� 鈥� had a standing Sunday afternoon Zoom where we would just check in and get together. In the early months, that proved to be incredibly helpful, just remembering that we weren’t alone. Going for walks with my husband and also, frankly, allowing myself to feel pain and to grieve. I think as leaders we do need to inspire hope and let people know it’s going to be OK and be strong, but we also have to balance that strength and courage with vulnerability. There were weekends where I didn’t get off the couch. I’ve been pretty honest about that in conversations with others. I said to someone once, 鈥淚f one more person says, 鈥榊ou got this,鈥� I’m gonna smack 鈥榚m.鈥� A year and a half ago, I didn’t 鈥済ot this,鈥� and people were just lying. I’m sorry, they were just lying. I don’t think we do ourselves or our colleagues or anyone any service by faking it.

Beth Lehr, assistant principal, Sahuarita High School, Sahuarita, Arizona: I do not check my email at all on the weekends.

Toni Baker: I had a support system. They gave us vouchers for food. They gave my kids free computers. They gave us Wi-Fi. They had these teachers 鈥� I don’t even know where they found these beautiful teachers with these loving hearts for these kids. There was a teacher who had a grandma鈥檚 touch and a mom’s heart, and she was just so warm. This is through a computer. I’ve never met this woman to this day in real life. I had the community of Oakland REACH behind me. I wouldn’t have made it without them.

David Brown: When we were in person, I had 鈥渓unch bunches鈥� where I would eat lunch with the kids. So I went back to eating lunch virtually with the kids, and I found that really gave me a lot of positive energy. You find that you are equally, if not more, excited to see them in this virtual world than they are to see you. So it’s the, 鈥淗ey, Mr. Brown.鈥� It’s the big smile. It’s the camera coming on. It’s the home environment. It’s the parents waving in the background. I think all of that does a good amount to lift your spirits.

鈥楾he system itself is not changing鈥�

Confusing guidance and vitriolic debate left many parents feeling lost. They watched helplessly as their children disengaged from learning, but also worried that their kids would get sick if they returned to school. School leaders were caught in what felt like a non-stop, high-volume war of words with unions, parents and state officials. 

Pedro Martinez, CEO, Chicago Public Schools; former superintendent, San Antonio Independent School District: Texas did not prioritize teachers [for vaccines] in the first round, but they were pushing hard and threatening districts about keeping schools open. Meanwhile, the positivity rate, I remember in San Antonio, was over 21 percent. The death rate was five times higher in my district than it was in the more affluent parts of the county. I just remember the frustration. You want these things, but yet you’re not providing vaccines to my staff, who actually want to keep the schools open. 

Michael Mulgrew: The city doctors are telling us it’s going to be nothing but a cold and the schools could remain open. The kids are going to be fine. They’re not going to get it, and we’ll create herd immunity, and we’ll be safer faster than everybody else. Literally, that’s the conversation I was having with the mayor and his doctors. Our doctors are telling us the absolute opposite. They鈥檙e saying, 鈥淟isten, children might not be getting this at this point in time, but this is a serious virus and people are going to die.鈥� The big conflict was that first one. 

Marguerite Roza: I’m a data person. I really study the numbers, and I didn’t understand how a lot of people were driven by fear and couldn’t recognize what I was seeing. [They鈥檙e saying], 鈥淵our child could die,鈥� and I was like, 鈥淲ell, not really. The numbers here say, really, your child isn鈥檛 going to die. I promise you, driving to Grandma鈥檚 is more dangerous for your kid than this thing.鈥� You’re having two different conversations if you’re talking about numbers and you’re talking about fear. The fear was so dominant that the numbers people probably felt, out of respect, we should step back and be quiet. I don’t want to tell somebody who’s having a panic attack, 鈥淵ou’re overreacting.鈥� Looking back on it, I think that I probably kept my real views about the data quieter than I should have. I thought people were going to bounce out of it.

Mariela Garcia: We were able to pick whether to go back in person or stay online. I definitely wanted to go back. I missed my friends. I missed having class with a teacher right in front of me. My parents thought it was not a good idea. I was conflicted in making a decision, but for the good of my family, I decided to stay online for my whole senior year. That also meant no sports. I was so heartbroken because sports meant everything to me. I was unable to play my senior year. I had already claimed the captain position in my previous year playing, and I was looking forward to a great season. 

Parent power

The pandemic has dramatically changed parents鈥� relationships with their public schools, prompting some to seek new options and others to demand more from the schools their children attend. 鈥淚 think the pandemic has created some sort of awakening in parents that we’ve not seen before,鈥� Roza said. 鈥淚 don’t think there’s any putting that genie back in the bottle.鈥� 

Wendy Neal, executive director of My Child My Voice, a Houston-based advocacy group: I’m not saying the teachers are bad, I’m just saying that the parents were finding creative ways of being more of a teacher to their own child. Some parents were like, 鈥淲ell, if you’re not going to help my child, I’m pulling my kid out of your school. Either I’m going to homeschool, go to an education pod or go to a private school.鈥� Some of these parents really didn’t believe in charter schools either, and then all of a sudden, they’re putting their kid in a virtual charter school.

Marguerite Roza: In March of 2021, [my daughter’s school] finally got around to having their cross-country season outside, and they banned all parents from coming. They run three miles. They’re outside. It just got to the point where it was eye roll upon eye roll. A lot of parents showed up anyway, ’cause how are you going to keep parents off of a three-mile course, right? And we’re popping out of the bushes waving at each other. [It had been] a year, and we knew better. I should have marched out and said, “The evidence suggests we’re fine here,” but they were going to ban you and ban your team if you weren’t cooperating.

Sonya Thomas, executive director, Nashville PROPEL, a parent advocacy group: You would think that a pandemic would bring about a sense of urgency. We鈥檙e talking about decades of educational inequities, and what I’m seeing is that the system itself is not changing. It has actually grown richer in money. It has grown more savvy in messaging. And it’s hurtful. I鈥檝e got tears coming down my face now. I just had a friend who died this weekend. He couldn’t read. And I have to ask myself, 鈥淲hat has changed?鈥� 

Toni Baker: When this school year came around, the COVID was just everywhere. The previous year, they did the COVID tests, they did the sanitizer, they did the masks, they did all these precautions. And when school started back the next semester, all of that went out the window. I let it slide the first two days of school, but by the third day, I’m like, 鈥淲hat’s going on? Where are the masks? Where is this? Where is that? We’re still in this stuff, and it’s worse now.鈥� I had to make an executive decision as a parent. My kid鈥檚 class got exposed and I didn’t like the safety of it. I was worrying, like I had knots in my stomach. I had to remove my children from there. [My son鈥檚] class went on quarantine for a week and then I just never took them back.

Beth Lehr: I have one teacher. This is her ninth year. She has already resigned for next year. She said, 鈥淚 can’t do this anymore. I dread coming to work every day.鈥� She goes, 鈥淵ou know, I love the day-to-day of being in front of our kids. The second I have to open my email or grade their assignments is when I realize why I resigned.鈥� The emails. The constant onslaught of the very vocal unhappy parents. We have some amazing families, but we don’t hear the 鈥淭hank yous鈥� as often as we hear the 鈥淵ou sucks.鈥�

Lost learning

Educators love jargon. It鈥檚 not surprising, then, that lockdown introduced new terms like “COVID slide鈥� and 鈥減andemic learning loss鈥� to describe the academic fallout students experienced from months of remote learning. In June 2020, researchers at nonprofit assessment group NWEA were among the first to predict the extent of the chaos. The return to in-person learning helped. But as recently as December, from McKinsey & Co. showed that academic recovery has been uneven and gaps between Black and white students have widened. Educators also report challenges with student behavior, which many to the lack of socialization during remote learning.

Beth Lehr: The learning loss is going to be there. There’s going to be a new norm, but trying to jam more and more and more down their throats is not helping. Continuing to create these high-stakes environments and making kids feel less than because of something that was totally out of their control is not helping. Meeting kids where they are is. Why do they have to learn all these things, right? They have to learn it to be successful in the future. Great, what does that success look like? How are we redefining success, because honestly, right now, for some of these kids, success is getting out of bed and showing up.

Mariela Garcia: I’ve always struggled in math, and since it was online I feel like I wasn’t really learning as much as I could. When I got to college, I took trigonometry, and it was difficult. I had to get a tutor or stay after school. I had to study more on my own time. I had to take a test in person for the first time in two years. I struggled the first couple weeks, but once I got help and once I started studying, it’s just like riding a bike.

Ricardo Martinez: Seems like we’ve already stopped talking about it. A lot of people refuse to acknowledge it. They’re trying to change the conversation to CRT [critical race theory], anti-CRT. Let’s not worry about what’s not really happening and worry about what’s actually happening. Kids are getting more aggressive. They’ve lost social skills. We’ve lost a lot of learning, and I don’t think that the parents have been able to help because we barely know how to do what they’re asking us to do. I hope that we’re talking about learning loss until we catch back up, which should be in a few years.

Beth Lehr: [Students are experiencing an] emotional stuntedness, for lack of a better term. Freshmen are notoriously immature, but what we’re used to seeing as freshman behavior isn鈥檛 even freshman behavior. The 鈥�devious licks鈥� stuff [a TikTok challenge that included school property damage] 鈥� that was 100 percent only freshman. Oh my God, the soap dispensers were destroyed over and over and over again. We had to replace sinks. We had to replace toilets 鈥� not because they were stolen, but because they were destroyed. The older students were super-annoyed by the freshman because then we ended up having to lock our bathrooms during lunch. We’ve also had an increase in sexual infractions 鈥� not necessarily assaults. It’s consensual, but it鈥檚 much more frequent on our campus this year. This is my seventh year as assistant principal, and this year, hands down, we have had more issues with kids getting caught in positions that high schoolers should not be in.

Hosea Born, art and robotics teacher at Hope Academy of Public Service, Hope, Arkansas: We will be talking about it as long as there is the overwhelming reliance on standardized testing. The pandemic has shown us that adaptability is key, yet we are still measuring our students on how well they can take a test. Teaching a non-tested subject has allowed me to see the flexibility and amazing ways that students learn when there isn鈥檛 a looming requirement hanging over their heads. Some of my students haven鈥檛 had an art class since the start of the pandemic, but it is key for students to be able to create, and when given the opportunity, they have jumped right back in, and to me, are exceeding all expectations. 

Pedro Martinez: Last year, our district had 100,000 students who were disengaged, including seniors who would have dropped out. We got the majority of seniors to graduate. Same thing happened in San Antonio. What I heard from teachers directly was, 鈥淭hese kids are coming every day. These are the same students who we couldn’t get to engage in remote. They’re coming every single day.鈥� I saw the first-quarter grades. There are still gaps, but significant improvements over the remote year, and specifically with our kids of poverty and kids of color. That gives me a lot of hope. When we have the children in our schools, they actually do perform better.

Robin Lake: I think we will grapple with [learning loss] for as long as the COVID generation is alive. We鈥檒l be looking at the immediate impacts for probably a decade, but there are sure to be lasting effects on individuals and on the economy for many decades unless we can change the trajectory of our response. The question is how we鈥檒l be talking about it. Will the story be that we failed this generation of children, or will it be that we pulled together and found solutions for this generation, and designed a better education system for future generations?

A 鈥榝ive-alarm crisis鈥� for teachers

As they looked back, some recalled moments of doubt about perservering. According to from the National Education Association, the nation鈥檚 largest teachers union, more than half of teachers intend to leave the profession sooner than they originally planned. While some are dubious about 鈥�the Big Quit,鈥� NEA President Becky Pringle called teacher burnout and staff shortages a 鈥渇ive-alarm crisis.鈥�

Michael Mulgrew: I think most people in this profession thought of quitting throughout this thing. There were some really really tough times. The only way out of this is to go through it.

Susan Enfield: I don’t think I ever thought of quitting. There were moments where I thought I don’t know if I can do this, but that’s different than quitting. I never just was like, 鈥淚’m out of here,鈥� and my was not a response to the pandemic. I’m ready for a fresh challenge and Highline is ready for a fresh leader.

Beth Lehr: I’m so torn. I’ve applied for a principal position within the district, but at the same time I’m like, 鈥淲hy? Why did I just do that? What am I thinking?鈥� I haven’t yet gotten to the point where the stuff that I dislike about my job has outweighed the stuff that I like about it, but it鈥檚 hit or miss on a daily basis. 

鈥業 don鈥檛 use the term normal anymore鈥�

Like a sequel to a bad horror movie, the Omicron variant arrived just as educators and families thought they鈥檇 made it through the worst of the crisis. The sparked a spike in cases, resulting in further school closures and quarantines. But now, with increasing vaccination rates and a recent decline in positive cases, some states are lifting mask mandates. The nation鈥檚 three largest districts aren鈥檛 ready to let masks go, but some are starting to use a word they haven鈥檛 uttered in a while: hope.

Pedro Martinez: We’re now at a point where cases have been very steadily declining. Our city is now close to an over-70 percent vaccination rate. There are still gaps within my district, but I’m seeing good momentum, especially with 5- to 11-year-olds. We’re close to maybe half of our district that should be fully vaccinated within the next couple weeks. Over 90 percent of my staff are fully vaccinated. So it really gives me hope that we’re on the other side of this. There’s a chance that by springtime we could be talking about not wearing masks.

Susan Enfield: I am hopeful that in the coming weeks and months we are going to collectively adapt to a way of living, a way of working, that will feel more familiar to what we knew prior to the pandemic. I don’t use the term 鈥渘ormal鈥� anymore. I think entering that phase gives me hope.

Michael Mulgrew: The buildings built after the last pandemic have these really big windows. They actually were built that way so that you could open them to keep ventilation in case there was another pandemic. That literally became part of the code for schools after the pandemic of 1918. For a period of time last year, the teachers kept opening up the windows the whole way, and it’s like 7 degrees out. So, we had to produce this video for all the teachers about how you only have to open like half the windows about 3 inches each and you’ll be fine. One of the first cold days when we got back last month, I was in a school, and one of the teachers had windows open all the way. And I’m looking at the windows, and she touched my arm and she goes, 鈥淚 know I don’t have to open it that much, but my team teacher for 20 years died of COVID a year ago.鈥� I said, 鈥淵ou keep that window open any way you want.鈥�

Shawnie Bennett: I don’t think I will ever take off my mask.

Mariela Garcia: I’ve always been the type of person to talk to anybody, but it was different seeing people that I’ve never met before [at the University of Houston]. People have been socially awkward, and it’s hard to start a conversation. With my personality, I’m a happy person and I talk to anyone. So I鈥檓 going up to someone [last fall] like, 鈥淗i, nice to meet you,鈥� and they’re just like, 鈥淲hoa, 6 feet apart.鈥�

Beth Lehr: It’s so hard to see the end, and it鈥檚 so overwhelming. What I’ve heard more this year from my teachers than anything is, 鈥淲e thought that last year was hard. This year is 10 times harder.鈥� We鈥檝e had very, very low turnover. I do not foresee that being the case next year. There are kind of two camps. There’s the one camp of 鈥淭his too shall pass,鈥� and then there’s the other camp of 鈥淵eah, it’s going to pass, but I don’t know if I want to wait for it to.鈥�

鈥楢 true hunger for doing things differently鈥�

Two years of scrambling and false starts has offered ample opportunity to think about what has 鈥� and perhaps more to the point, what hasn鈥檛 鈥� worked for schools. If there鈥檚 another pandemic 鈥� and scientists say there undoubtedly , and soon 鈥� will anything change?

Christopher Nellum, executive director, Education Trust West: I think we now appreciate mental health in a different way. The past two years have been traumatic. We have been scared, sick, overworked, unemployed. We have missed vital human connection and even lost loved ones. We have witnessed a surge in racially motivated hate crimes and a national reckoning over police brutality toward Black and brown Americans. It鈥檚 OK to be struggling to feel OK in the face of all of that. It鈥檚 OK to talk about it. And we all deserve access to the resources we need to address it. 

Sonya Thomas: Parent engagement is not what we want. When you engage us, what you’re doing is bringing your own agenda and you’re saying, 鈥淭his is what we’re going to do, so get with the program.鈥� That’s what engagement means, right? 鈥淚’m bringing something to you, this is what you’re gonna get and you gotta just walk in line with it.鈥� I think what they’re learning is that we’re not going anywhere and we want parent partnership. We don’t want to be engaged. Throw that in the trash. That has never gotten anything for our children. What we want is true partnership. We want school districts to partner with us, intentionally take our feedback and use it. That builds trust. It鈥檚 not a talking point or a PR move. 

Dale Chu: If anything, we鈥檝e learned what doesn鈥檛 work. For example, asynchronous learning [without live teaching ] 鈥� homework, study hall 鈥� stunk. We also learned that huge doses of it left millions of students isolated from their peers, the toll from which we鈥檙e just starting to come to grips with.

Robin Lake: I hear a true hunger for doing things differently. People are saying, 鈥淵ou know, the way we ask teachers to teach alone in a classroom, trying to be expert in all things and serve vastly different needs, is crazy.鈥� I believe there is a powerful confluence of parents, educators and civic leaders who know things have to change and are determined to make that happen.

Michael Mulgrew: We never said [remote learning] was going to be the be-all-and-end-all. It was always a way for us to keep in contact, to keep our students engaged. Through the end of that [2019-20] school year, it really was more of a lifeline between teachers and students and their families. We thought it should have been more of a centralized process, but [the department] figured it’s better off to just let every teacher do their own thing. The majority of students really do regress in a remote setting. There was a small percentage of students who actually thrived in remote, so that says there’s something there we have to look at. If there’s a subset of children who were not doing well when they were going to school 鈥� and there’s all sorts of different reasons for that 鈥� who all of a sudden did really well in a remote setting, we have to look at this going into the future.

Marguerite Roza: We have seen districts jump in and be nimble in a way that we never thought districts could be nimble before. People always say, 鈥淵ou know, turning a district around is like turning an aircraft carrier.鈥� I’m like, an aircraft carrier turns around in a day. Why is everybody using that as something that’s slow? I was in the military. [From 1988 to 1992, Roza served at the Navy Nuclear Power School in Orlando.] Aircraft carriers are pretty maneuverable. There are thousands and thousands of people on an aircraft carrier, and that thing could spin around and change direction with the wind. I do think that we had thought districts couldn’t adjust, and many of them did.

Beth Lehr: I’ve had a lot of teachers really rethink their philosophies 鈥� some of my most dyed-in-the-wool [teachers]. This has truly opened their eyes when they’ve seen the disparities. Not everybody’s home looks the same. When we first started doing all of the remote, we had a lot of really serious conversations about requiring cameras to be on or not. A lot of our teachers were like, well, 鈥淲hy wouldn’t the camera be on?鈥� They never took into account that there might be 10 people in a two-bedroom house. There might be somebody being slapped, hit, cut, whatever while they’re there. They might be embarrassed because they’re doing your class from their car in the McDonald’s parking lot.

鈥楽o long and so short鈥�

Seven hundred days have flown by for some and painfully dragged on for others. For many, it鈥檚 been a bit of both. 

Michael Mulgrew: It feels like 7,000 days.

Laurie Corizzo, counselor, Ridge Ranch School, Paramus, New Jersey: This whole pandemic, the virus, the water cooler conversations are never-ending. If someone isn’t discussing a vaccine, a booster, the virus, who has it, who had it, who passed, it seems that conversations are stagnant. My point is, it encompasses every single aspect of our lives. It is as if there were some sort of imaginary force field that prevents any semblance of any other conversation to happen anywhere on the planet. In a word, it is quite exhausting.

Christopher Nellum: I hope that 700 days in, we are seeing our education systems for what they are and what they have been for a long, long time: profoundly inequitable.

Susan Enfield: I didn’t know that 700 days could both seem so long and so short simultaneously. I think the last couple of years have felt like a lifetime in and of themselves, and yet, at the same time, it feels like it’s gone by in a flash.

Marguerite Roza: I mean, wow 鈥� what a seismic interruption to education unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Normally, we would say a 1 percent change in enrollment from one year to the next is earth-shattering to finance. We鈥檙e seeing 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 percent enrollment shifts in some districts. And some of those are large districts. Those kinds of things are going to change the structure of education forever.

Lead Image: Rippowam Middle School principal Matthew Laskowski looks on from a socially distanced cafeteria in September 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut. (John Moore / Getty Images)

To mark the 700th day since schools shut down because of COVID-19, 蜜桃影视 spoke with parents, educators, researchers and students across the U.S. We are running some of these interviews in their entirety to give complete accounts of where we鈥檝e been and where some think we鈥檙e going.

A lot of people changed jobs during the pandemic. Pedro Martinez was one of them, leaving his position as superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District, which he held for five years, to lead the nation鈥檚 third largest school district in Chicago. The political contexts could not have been more different for Martinez, who also chairs Chiefs for Change, a network of superintendents. He left a state led by a governor opposed to masks and hardline COVID protocols for a mayoral-controlled district with a powerful union determined to make sure schools were implementing all COVID mitigation measures. In February, he spoke with 蜜桃影视 about standing up to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the impact of poverty on students during remote learning and hopeful signs that students are making up for lost learning.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: What was the moment you realized everything changed? What were you doing before and after?

Pedro Martinez: The majority of districts in San Antonio were on spring break and we were hearing about the pandemic and about things possibly shutting down. I remember talking to my colleagues in San Antonio and in Texas, saying, 鈥淲e gotta figure out a way to convince people not to close the schools.鈥� Our fear was that if the schools closed we wouldn’t be able to open them again because we could sense the fear just rising. There was a lot that was unknown. Some of us were already agreeing to fight it. But then the entire state shut down and the entire country shut down and we realized we lost. We weren’t in control anymore. 

Were you yourself on break? Had you left town?

Ironically, my family is from Chicago, so we were in Chicago, but were already in the process of returning back to San Antonio. I was on the phone literally the whole week with my board, with my union leadership in San Antonio, with all the different stakeholders, trying to assess what was going to happen. We were positioning ourselves: 鈥淗ow do we fight? How do we make sure we keep the schools open?鈥� And then, of course, that decision was made for us.

What decisions do you remember having to make in the first weeks after schools closed?

I saw people responding to a crisis. For example, my food service workers knew that even though everything was shut down, they had to get food to the families. My bus drivers literally said, 鈥淲e’re going to develop our own delivery system.鈥� The whole city, the whole country was shut down. At that point, people were so scared that if they just walked outside that they could get COVID and die. That’s how fearful they were. In San Antonio, over 90 percent of my families lived in poverty. Then it became also: 鈥淗ow do we help, how do we provide any academic support?鈥�

We had been worried about something happening, so my chief information officer had already ordered 40,000 devices [in early March]. We were kind of ahead of it that way. But then, how do you get them out to families? Then there were the number of children who were falling between the cracks that you had to go find, but we weren’t allowed to go to their homes because it wasn’t safe. It was just all these dynamics, all happening at that time. It’s a period that I don’t think any of us want to relive. I was frankly very encouraged by the leadership I saw on the team. We did get devices out, we did get food out, and people started thinking out of the box, even though there was a lot of fear. Then, fast forwarding to the fall [of 2020], there was the issue of how you then open the schools back up, how do you reduce the fear, how do you implement the safety procedures. At that time, we didn’t have vaccines yet. 

Vaccines for teachers and then for students were major milestones last year. Can you talk about those moments? 

My biggest memory was just frustration because the state of Texas did not prioritize teachers in the first round, but were pushing hard and threatening districts about keeping schools open. Meanwhile, the positivity rate in San Antonio was over 21 percent. The death rate was five times higher in my district than it was in the more affluent parts of the county. So I just remember the frustration of [the state] wanting these things, but not providing vaccines to my staff, who actually wanted to keep schools open.

We were a district where immediately my teachers were seeing the inequities. They could see that the children were not engaging as well as they had in person. They could tell they were struggling academically. A lot of my teachers said to me, 鈥淵ou always talk about the poverty,鈥� but they got to see it firsthand when they saw the home lives of their children through those cameras. 

You also clashed with the state over masks. Did you talk to Gov. Abbott?

We were very loud about our positioning. My teachers were afraid. The union was really fighting to keep the schools closed. We had, on the other side, the state forcing us to stay open, threatening us that they would cut all of our funding if we didn’t open the schools. And then I had some different views from families, from taxpayers. It was all over the board and I remember just feeling caught in the middle. At the end, we had to decide what was in the best interest of both our staff and our children, with children being the priority. So we decided to phase in the staff, then we decided to phase in the students very slowly. We took stands on both masking and eventually on vaccines that I still feel very, very strongly about. 

I talked to staff around [the governor]. In the end, the biggest fight was with the attorney general. There were letters, it was all in writing. They would send a letter threatening us. Our lawyers would respond. Then we would make a public statement. It was more politics than it was anything else. It was never really a true, honest conversation.

What have we learned from all this? What do you feel will be some of the enduring lessons from this time? 

I would have never imagined that we could be doing video conferencing with the quality and consistency that we’re doing now. Here in Chicago, with 600 schools, we have principal meetings that we can do virtually. We do multiple groups of principals, but I can do it virtually instead of trying to figure out how to physically have meetings with that many people. So I think that’s a silver lining. I actually think there’s a place for using this academically as well. We’ve got to figure out when children are out, when they’re sick, how we continue learning beyond the classroom. I think those are positives. 

On the other side, this was allowed to be politicized. With the former administration and the current administration, one of my frustrations is the fact that I felt there should have been more decisive decision making at the federal level. Take the politics out about masking. Take the politics out about vaccines. I’ve been very clear about that. I think that should not have been left to the individual townships or cities, because that, to me, is a recipe for disaster. Myself and my colleagues are having to deal with the individual politics in our communities.

Here in Chicago, even though we have a lawsuit right now with somebody trying to fight us on the masks, generally I’ve had support on masking. But then I have the other issue, which is people would prefer to close the schools a lot sooner and a lot quicker. It was the opposite in Texas.

Another lesson learned is that I believe one of the unintended consequences of remote learning was that it exacerbated the inequities that exist in our society. More than ever, I now appreciate how our school buildings and classrooms are supposed to be the equalizers for things we can’t control. When a child grows up in poverty and does not have the resources at home, the only chance for us to even try to counter that is to have them in a warm, safe space where they feel supported, where there is food, nursing care, and the ability to work with them at their level with academic supports. When that got taken away, it exacerbated all the things we always knew about what happens when children are in poverty. The disadvantage just became much more visible.

You just went through a fight with the union last month over keeping schools open. What do you feel hopeful about now?  

A couple of things. Last year, our district had 100,000 students who were disengaged including seniors who would have dropped out. We got the majority of seniors to graduate. The same thing happened in San Antonio. We got all seniors to graduate. In Chicago, we got over 87 percent of our students [to graduate]. What I heard from teachers directly was these kids are coming every day. These are the same students who we couldn’t get to engage remotely. They’re coming every single day. I saw the first quarter grades. There are still gaps, but significant improvements over the remote year, especially with our kids of poverty and kids of color. So that gives me a lot of hope. When we have the children in our schools, they actually do perform better.

In Chicago, we’re now at a point where cases have been very steadily declining. Vaccinations are very high. Our city is now close to over a 70 percent vaccination rate. There are still gaps with students in my district, but I’m seeing a good momentum, especially with 5- to 11-year-olds. We鈥檙e close to maybe half of our district that should be fully vaccinated within the next couple weeks. Over 90 percent of my staff is fully vaccinated, so it really gives me hope that we’re on the other side of this. Right now, just under 150,000 students have had at least a first shot. More than 54 percent of my [students] 12 and up are already fully vaccinated and we’re going to get close to a third of our 5- to 11-year-olds. 

What about academic improvement? Do you think it will take as long for students to recover as some have predicted? 

I’ve talked to teachers about this. I asked them, 鈥淗ow do you respond to parents who are really worried because they saw such a dip in academics last year?鈥� What they tell me is that in the first quarter, they saw significant improvements in the children鈥檚 academics. It doesn’t mean that the gap got closed, but it was so dramatic. What I used to say in San Antonio is that if you鈥檝e ever been to one of those trampoline parks for young kids, what I felt was that people put boulders on the trampolines and they were depressed. But we strengthened the trampolines. We made sure the springs were strong. So what happens when you start taking off the boulders? You start seeing this huge jump. I think that could happen academically.

To mark the 700th day since schools shut down because of COVID-19, 蜜桃影视 spoke with parents, educators, researchers and students across the U.S. We are running some of these interviews in their entirety to give complete accounts of where we鈥檝e been and where some think we鈥檙e going.

Robin Lake is the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which shortly after schools shut down, began tracking closures across 100 large districts. and has continued to collect data on school reopening, academic recovery efforts and other pandemic-related policies. In January, she chatted over email about equity, learning loss and the 鈥渦nacceptable鈥� status quo in education.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Feb. 14 will be 700 days since most schools began closing. That number even took us by surprise. What鈥檚 your initial reaction to it?

Robin Lake: What we thought was going to be two weeks of disruption turned into two years. No wonder we鈥檙e all so tired and stressed! In some ways, the days have flown by because we have all been so focused on just getting from one week to the next. But two years is a very long time to have our lives fundamentally disrupted. It鈥檚 been a hell of a ride for adults, but for young people who鈥檝e missed out on so much, two years feels like forever. 

What was the moment you realized everything changed? What were you doing before and after?

Oh, I remember exactly. I was having brunch with my sister in Kirkland, Washington [just across Lake Washington from Seattle] when the news broke that there were multiple cases and deaths at the Life Care Center nursing home just a few miles away. My husband sent me a text telling me to get out of Kirkland right away, and everything felt ominous. Within days, the University of Washington announced it was going virtual, and the , just north of Kirkland, did the same. Those were the first schools in the country to close. 

In Seattle, it was evident that this virus was unstoppable and we had to prepare. I remember sitting in my house, listening to sirens wailing, and writing emails to every person I knew in a position of influence in philanthropy and in the policy world that we had to get ready, and quickly. I knew school systems would struggle to respond and I knew the kids who were already underserved would pay the highest price. It was hard to get people to realize the urgency of the situation and start planning.  : 鈥淢any districts are paralyzed right now, faced with a choice of keeping kids safe or keeping them learning. Instead, they must prepare to do both.鈥� That has been a repetitive theme at almost every stage of the pandemic.

What has been the darkest part of the pandemic for you?

It鈥檚 been a series of dark times. It鈥檚 hard to pick just one. The early days were so chaotic and anxiety-inducing. The entire academic year of 2020-21 was horrible because we were swinging in and out of closures, repeatedly unprepared to deliver quality virtual instruction. States left local leaders to figure everything out on their own, and national leaders made schools central to their political fight rather than insulating them. Union power plays kept schools closed when it was clear they could safely reopen. And nasty local political fights meant that when schools did reopen they were often subsumed by hot-button issues.

In some ways, though, this past school year feels darkest to me. The academic and mental health consequences to kids are revealing themselves to be worse than many had feared.  Meanwhile, districts are spending federal stimulus dollars on football field upgrades and unsustainable salary boosts for teachers. Because we failed to innovate and protect schools from politics, educators are burnt out and parents are angry. Two years later, we are still in denial and students are paying the price.

What do you feel hopeful about now?

In the interviews we do with school and district leaders, I hear a true hunger for doing things differently. People are saying, 鈥淵ou know, the way we ask teachers to teach alone in a classroom, trying to be expert in all things and serve vastly different needs, is crazy.鈥� The way we鈥檝e organized high school to prepare all students the same way for vastly different post-secondary pathways . The way we have walled off community services and supports from schools serves no one well. The way we put the full burden of education on families while schools closed and then shut them out of classrooms when schools reopened is unacceptable. This represents a historic opportunity: The people leading our public education system, and working within it, feel more deeply than ever that the status quo is unacceptable.

We鈥檙e also seeing new ingredients for transformation fall into place. We saw community organizations step up to support learning in new ways. We saw major investments in closing the digital divide. We saw to design new career pathways for their students on the fly.

I believe there is a powerful confluence of parents, educators, and civic leaders who know things have to change and are determined to make that happen. That gives me real hope. 

What would you tell yourself 700 days ago, if you could go back in time, given what we know now? 

Get ready for a decade of work ahead.

What decisions do you remember having to make in the first weeks after schools closed?

There were a number of tough puzzles to solve.  We needed to know what schools and school districts were doing, what challenges they faced, and what solutions they were finding. But there was no easy way to get that information. So we assembled a team of researchers to go from website to website to collect information, and then created a public database to share the information with whoever needed it. This was no time to hoard information. 

We also knew that the enormity of research needs would require a coordinated strategy to get right. We pulled together working groups of researchers, policy makers, and funders to identify high-priority research projects and to quickly synthesize evidence back out to the field. 

And because we were tracking all of this information so closely, a lot of people asked us our opinions about what kinds of help was needed for students, families, and educators. I took it as a serious responsibility to try to recommend investments and policy changes that would truly make a difference at such a critical time. For that reason, I spent a lot of time calling the smartest people I knew to help me think strategically, creatively, and responsibly. 

How long will we be talking about pandemic learning loss?

I think we will grappling with it for as long as the COVID generation is alive, really. We鈥檒l be looking at the immediate impacts for probably a decade, but there are sure to be lasting effects on individuals and on the economy for many decades unless we can change the trajectory of our response. The question is how we鈥檒l be talking about it. Will the story be that we failed this generation of children, or will it be that we pulled together and found solutions for this generation, and designed a better education system for future generations?

Do you think CRPE’s work has been misunderstood during this time? In what ways?

I really don鈥檛 know. People have told us they appreciate that we acted quickly and tried to be helpful. We worked hard to call out examples of success but also tried to be vocal when there were problems. Throughout the pandemic, however, people thought I was being alarmist when I called for people to prepare for school closures and others thought I was being reckless when I called for schools to reopen. People often don鈥檛 know what to make of CRPE because we reject dichotomous thinking and look for pragmatic and creative solutions. Our North Star has been to focus on what students need and tell the truth, even when it鈥檚 uncomfortable. 

How has the pandemic changed you as a researcher? As a parent?

The crisis was a wrecking ball and there was no time to second guess myself, to spend time on things that didn鈥檛 matter, or to hold back my views about what should happen to ensure students鈥� wellbeing. As a researcher, I hope I can always hold that focus. 

I don鈥檛 really think the pandemic changed me as a parent. If anything, it hardened my resolve that our public education system needs to flex to meet student and family needs. The urgent need to create schools and systems with that capability is where my life as a parent and my work as a researcher converge.

To mark the 700th day since schools shut down because of COVID-19, 蜜桃影视 spoke with parents, educators, researchers and students across the U.S. We are running some of these interviews in their entirety to give complete accounts of where we鈥檝e been and where some think we鈥檙e going. 

Marguerite Roza is executive director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. A school finance expert, Roza advises districts on budget decisions, and has helped school leaders and the public understand regulations and the flexibility tied to the billions of dollars districts received in federal relief programs. In a January interview, she discussed those issues as well as concerns closer to home: how watching her daughter鈥檚 loneliness during lockdowns left her 鈥渟carred鈥� and fighting to hold her tongue about COVID risks in the face of pandemic panic.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Feb. 14 will be 700 days since most schools began closing. That number even took us by surprise. What鈥檚 your initial reaction to it?

Marguerite Roza: I mean, wow 鈥� what a seismic interruption to education unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. All these enrollment shifts going on. Normally we would say a 1 percent change in enrollment from one year to the next is sort of earth-shattering to finance, and we’re seeing 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 percent enrollment shifts in some districts, and some of those are large districts. Those kinds of things are going to change the structure of education forever.

The pandemic has also created some sort of awakening in parents that we’ve not seen before in terms of the worldview they have and the kind of expectations they have now. I don’t think there’s any putting that genie back in the bottle. 

My dad was in the Netherlands in World War II. He was a 10-year-old when his house was bombed, and they went in the middle of the night to stay with a neighbor. Within a month, school started up again even though they were occupied by Nazi Germany. Kids couldn’t ride their bikes because the tires had gone flat and they couldn’t get tires and things like that. They would just walk to school and still have school. There was no power or anything.

I know it’s different, but it feels like it became OK to deprioritize school in the big picture. I’m thinking about how that changes what you tell your kids: 鈥淥h yeah, you can sleep in or just log on and go through the motions or whatever.鈥� How do you get them to work hard and take it seriously and how do you recover that groove, those habits? Schools have been ground zero for fear, compared to other industries or organizations. Obviously, hospitals have had their own focus during this time. But schools have been where both sides of desperation have come together and really butted up against each other.

What was the moment you realized everything changed? What were you doing before and after?

My daughter and I were driving to go pick up some fish for dinner, and in the car, they announced the governor’s order. It was with a bigger lockdown kind of order. We walked into the fish market place and the guy behind the counter goes, 鈥淗ave you heard anything yet?鈥� Because everybody was talking [about the} press conference. And we were like, 鈥淵eah,鈥� And he goes, 鈥淲hat did he say?鈥� And we say, 鈥淟ockdown,鈥� and he [grunts] 鈥淯hhhhh.鈥�

Already the streets were pretty empty and the first person we talked to was the guy who is packaging up our salmon.

What has been the darkest part of the pandemic for you?

The hardest part was when it looked like there was no reopening school. This was November of 2020. The governor had established these metrics by which you could open schools, and as far out as the modelers had modeled, it was never going to reopen. My then-high school daughter [a cross country runner] was getting more and more discouraged. You could just see it was not really healthy for her just to be home all alone every day, and as a parent, you start to feel desperate.

You keep looking for the next press conference. I used to listen to press conferences constantly to see if there was any movement. Even when the evidence said he could start opening schools again, you could see that there wasn’t going to be any movement. I was very worried about her. The sports season had come and gone. There were no sports, obviously. School was online, so that was probably the darkest time, which coincides in Seattle with it being really dark, [at] like 3:45. 

Somewhere around a year ago, my daughter wrote , and she had been tracking, tracking, tracking the data. She would send emails to Harvard epidemiologists to ask them their take on certain things. She’s the one who came down and said, 鈥淲e’re never gonna reopen. Look at this data. If this governor has this as a metric, we’re never going to reach it.鈥� And she was right. She would email her principal all the time. The Seattle Times piece starts off, 鈥淚鈥檒l admit it. I’m lonely.鈥� I read that and cried. 

She got a lot of response on it, not just in Washington, but from other states. Somehow that opening struck a nerve with people who were feeling desperate about the same kinds of things. 

Did the pandemic impact her educational plans?

She was a junior when it hit and had to go through a college application process that was all messed up. Tests were canceled. We flew to another state to try to take a test. It was such a mess. One of her coping strategies was to go outside and run. She had been a middle-of-the-pack cross country runner, or a little bit above middle-of-the-pack, but not like anywhere in the top 10. She just started running as her own personal therapy. And then she was running more, and some of her friends鈥� parents would let their kids go out running. 

One day she was like, 鈥淚 ran a marathon today,鈥� and we were like, 鈥淲hat is going on?鈥� First we’re excited, and then we thought she’s maybe doing too much running. She got so fast, she could have been a [Division] 1 runner. 

Finally, they got around to having the season in the spring and she’d also gotten all her friends on the team to run. Their team went from 72nd in the state in cross country the year before to first. So she had this massive success in running, but because of the pandemic, she could never use it for college. It was too late. The colleges had already filled their teams.

What do you feel hopeful about now?

I’m not sure I’m totally hopeful yet. But we have seen districts jump in and be nimble in a way that we never thought districts could be nimble before. We didn’t really ask them to be. People always say, 鈥淭urning a district around is like turning an aircraft carrier around.鈥� I’m like, an aircraft carrier turns around in a day. Why is everybody using that as something that’s slow? I was in the military. Aircraft carriers are pretty maneuverable. There are a lot of people, thousands and thousands of people on an aircraft carrier, and that thing could spin around. It changed direction with the wind. 

What did you do in the military?

I was in the Navy. I taught at the Navy Nuclear Power School for people who went out and operated the nuclear reactors on aircraft carriers and submarines. 

I do think we thought districts couldn’t adjust and many of them did. Especially this fall. We don’t have enough bus drivers? Quick, let’s pay the parents. We did see a lot of district leaders being nimble, like walking out of the central office and coming to schools to take air quality readings, greet kids, jump into classrooms when people were out sick, and change the way they do hiring bonuses and targeted pay for special ed teachers. I think [there are] a whole family of new compensation strategies and a whole bunch of other activities that show that even humans in large school districts can be nimble and dynamic and responsive. We’ve started to think about how to incorporate families in our strategies for learning in a way that we hadn’t before, and I’m not sure we鈥檝e fully tapped into that.

Part of parents鈥� desperation is they’ve exhausted all their sick days, and they鈥檙e worried about their kids not learning. Some of them don鈥檛 have another alternative and some are still really desperate. Sometimes that desperation comes out as an attack and in something that doesn’t feel very healthy. 

What would you tell yourself 700 days ago, if you could go back in time, given what we know now? 

We all would have approached the time out of school differently if we’d known how long it was going to take. I think everybody would have gone further to set up some sort of alternative. Everybody was talking about pods and whether your kid is going to go to one of these learning groups. Some people I know would have switched schools earlier on or changed their jobs so that they could be around their kids more or enroll them in an online course because chemistry ended up being a complete waste in the virtual model. Seattle was locked down longer. It was really hard to watch other parts of the country opening up and serving kids and then not having that. That was part of that desperation. 

If we could go back 鈥� this is just me personally and probably the opposite from what some of the other people said to you 鈥�  but I’m a data person. I really study the numbers, and I didn’t understand how a lot of people were driven by fear and couldn’t recognize what I was seeing in the numbers. [They were saying], 鈥淵our child could die,鈥� and I’d respond, 鈥淲ell, not really. The numbers here say, really, your child’s not going to die. I promise you, driving to grandma鈥檚 is more dangerous for your kid than this thing.鈥� This panic. When people are so emotionally rooted in fear, you’re having two different conversations if you’re talking about numbers and you’re talking about fear. The fear was so dominant that the numbers people probably felt like, out of respect, we should step back and be quiet because I don’t want to tell somebody having a panic attack, 鈥淵ou’re overreacting.鈥�

Looking back on it, I think that I probably kept my real views about the data quieter than I should have. I thought people were going to bounce out of it. I don’t know that it would have done anything, but I had lots of conversations with people where they went on and on and on about the panic and the fear and that closing schools was the right thing to do. For fear of being accused of saying COVID is a hoax 鈥� you didn’t want to be lumped in with that 鈥� you didn’t say, 鈥淲ell, that doesn’t feel right.鈥� It’s been a very hard year for those of us who are data, numbers people.

I actually remember talking to a friend of mine and saying, 鈥淵ou know, the kids generally don’t die,鈥� and she鈥檚 like, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e misinformed.鈥� I [said], 鈥淣o, I downloaded the data from the federal site. I have it all down on my laptop, I looked at it.鈥� She said,鈥漌ell, not in my area. They’re dying here right and left. I read about it yesterday in the paper.鈥� I said, 鈥淲ell, let’s go look up your county and let’s see if they break it up by age and let me show you.鈥� No kids in her county had died, but these non-data people weren’t downloading the spreadsheets and looking at them.

How long will we be talking about pandemic learning loss?

I heard Mike [Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute] the other day talk about 鈥渞ecession kids鈥� from 10 years ago, so I was thinking as long as there are kindergarteners during the pandemic, until the time they graduate from high school, we’re probably going to be talking about how they were the 鈥減andemic kids.鈥� That’s why they don’t learn as fast or read as well. It will be a thing. For a good 10 years, we鈥檒l be looking at the data.

I’m less interested in the data for accountability or sort of a “gotcha” 鈥� you did this wrong or you ranked low 鈥� and more into the data for how we can use it to make progress. I almost would rather say, fine, I’ll trade away the annual [assessments] if you could do something quarterly that just shows progress on a couple of measures. I would even narrow the outcomes to things that that we know kids need to get to the next level, just the basic necessities. I’d be OK if we measured them in some other ways tied to the tools they’re already using to learn, whether it’s Zearn [a math app] or other online tools.

But if we don’t try to work towards something, we may not work toward anything. The once-a-year test, the accountability, the lists 鈥�  I can understand why schools and leaders are anxious about them. I would be too. Different schools had different impacts. Some parents were at home and read to their kids or made them still get up and do their homework. A teacher who just let everything be open book and a school that gave out all A鈥檚 because we had some of that around [is going to be different than those] that said, 鈥淣o, you need to turn in this composition and I’m gonna work with you to improve your writing.鈥� 

Do we understand what works in virtual learning better than we did two years ago? Why or why not?

Everybody needs structure in their life, especially kids. Teenagers need structure and their own sort of personal accountability to people, which is the best kind of accountability. We could set an alternative to schooling 鈥� I’m not going to say it’s virtual learning, but an alternative to schooling that accomplishes some of the public health goals, but still incorporates other human elements that people need to be productive and successful and healthy. Some teenagers 鈥� socializing is like oxygen to them, and somehow we thought you could just cut off their oxygen and it’ll be just fine. That was really lopsided. We did some harm to humans in that process, and I’m still scarred from that.

We had, for over a year, a padlock on the fence around the elementary school playground and a sign with a line through that said 鈥淐OVID-19.鈥� A year after the pandemic started, in March of 2021, they finally got around to having their cross country season outside. And they banned all parents from coming. They run three miles. They’re outside. I mean it just got to the point where it was like eye roll upon eye roll. A lot of parents showed up anyway, because how are you going to keep parents off of a 3-mile course? We’re popping out of the bushes, waving at each other.  It was a year and we knew better, and that’s sort of like when I should have marched out like, 鈥淭he evidence suggests we’re fine here. Stop this.鈥� But they were going to ban you and ban your team and everything else if you weren’t cooperating. 

How do you think the pandemic has changed the direction of your work?

We’re an education finance shop, and the money that has come out has been a game changer. First, the pandemic started with financial turmoil. The stock market dropped and state budgets were imploding. Then we got three waves of new money, with the third being so big that we’ve never seen anything like it. So we’re really for the first time ever, having a conversation about how to use a whole bunch of money that’s not spoken for. But we’re not just doing it in a normal year; we’re also doing it in a crazy year where people are saying, 鈥淚 want better ventilation,鈥� and 鈥淲hy can’t we do this?鈥� And there’s a labor shortage and all these other things. So our work has been an absolute financial frenzy from the beginning, and I think it’s reminded me that we don’t really prepare people to be financially nimble and figure this stuff out on the fly. It’s a lot of work, but it’s been invigorating to jump in and help with something that people needed help on.

Throughout nearly two years of the pandemic, young people at every turn have found creative ways to connect with their friends and potential love interests. Despite what at many times has been a largely virtual world, teens often came out on the other side of lockdown with relationships that were stronger for the experience. 

Or as one New York City high schooler put it: 鈥淚f you鈥檝e been through a pandemic with someone, I feel like we鈥檙e bonded for life.鈥�

From long-harbored crushes to new friends over Zoom, breakups to hookups, and Bumble DMs to online multiplayer games, young people shared with 蜜桃影视 their experiences of pandemic friendship and romance, brought to you in the form of seven mini-love stories.

ILA KUMAR

It was the Frida Kahlo poster in the background of her Snapchats that first caught his attention. Ila Kumar was about to be a senior in high school and, stuck inside her family鈥檚 home in upstate New York as the early stages of the pandemic raged, she had begun chatting with 鈥� a boy. And not just any boy, but a longtime crush.

Over Snapchat, the two quickly discovered that they had each taken AP Art History and planned to major in the subject in college. 鈥淭hat was the beginning of our conversation,鈥� said Kumar. 鈥淎nd then it just kind of went from there.鈥�

Pretty soon, she was begging her mother, who was the more COVID-strict parent in the household, to let her meet up with this new romantic interest. The boy, for his part, offered to sanitize the car before Kumar entered and drive with the windows down. 

The campaign eventually succeeded and in June 2020 they met for coffee on the nearby campus of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie. That date ended in a kiss, which both shocked and pleased her. The pair kept seeing each other, taking COVID tests beforehand if either was worried about a potential exposure. After each date, Kumar had a friend who would come to her house and sit six feet apart on her back porch to debrief. 

鈥淎fter such a terrible year, this, like, little 13-year-old dream I had totally came true,鈥� said Kumar.

Now, the couple is embarking on what Kumar calls an 鈥渆xperiment in attachment.鈥� She鈥檚 at Vassar, living in a dorm next to the cafe where they first met. He studies at the University of Michigan. The processes of navigating long-distance and virus safety together have made them better communicators, Kumar believes. And amid the continued uncertainty of pandemic travel, the pair has developed a deeper gratitude for the time they get to share together.

鈥淭here’s something kind of magical about being able to overcome a lot of stuff and getting to see the person who you love so much,鈥� she said.

DORA CHAN

When the pandemic made in-person hangouts impossible for Dora Chan and her friends at Brooklyn Technical High School, they turned to online games. Their favorite was a multiplayer egg-based shooter game called Shell Shockers.

鈥淚t’s often really silly, because we’re like, 鈥極h my god, there鈥檚 an egg around the corner. Watch out,鈥欌�� said Chan.

They would form huge Zoom calls to play, and not only would her immediate friends join, but also friends of friends whom she didn鈥檛 know well. She quickly developed her own independent relationships. One previously unknown peer asked her to play online games nearly every single day, said Chan.

Alongside the pandemic鈥檚 grim backdrop, the high schoolers would frequently jump between lighter topics to more heavy ones, cementing their new connections.

鈥淪ometimes people will be vulnerable with each other, even if you’re strangers and be like, 鈥榊eah, my grandma is in the hospital right now and I’m worried.鈥� And then you have someone else say, 鈥極h my god, me too,鈥欌�� said Chan. 

鈥淚t’s, like, so sad but also heartwarming that we can come together in times like that.鈥�

As national attention turned to racial injustice after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, race and policing would also come up in their conversations, said the high schooler. It would never be the original intent of the call, but the topic would arise naturally, maybe after they got bored with the game.

鈥淚t was at those moments that we felt the most connected,鈥� said Chan. 鈥淲e understood that, despite everything that was happening, we all were going through it together.鈥�

Now, she meets up in the city to spend time with those she grew close to during quarantine. They get food, go shopping and hang out, but Chan remains careful about COVID because her grandparents live with her family. The relationships that she made over the last two years, she believes, are even stronger than those she had before. 

鈥淚t has made those friendships open to, like, all topics on earth. We can just talk about anything and everything,鈥� said the Brooklyn Tech senior. 鈥淭hat’s why I think those friendships have lasted.鈥�

JACE WILDER

Jace Wilder and his now-partner first matched on Tinder during early quarantine, but before they could connect, Wilder deleted the app. When the pair again matched on Bumble, Wilder knew he had to reach out.

鈥淵ou had me at nonprofit,鈥� he messaged, responding to a mention on the potential love interest鈥檚 profile that he had founded a charitable organization.

It kicked off a months-long texting conversation. When COVID numbers eventually began to subside in September 2020, they decided to meet up for a socially distanced dinner. The two, who are both transgender men living in Tennessee, bonded quickly.

鈥淚t was just one of those times where we immediately were connected by the fact that we were both trans, we were both connected by the fact that, you know, he went to Belmont (the Nashville university Wilder attends) 鈥� and had switched schools,鈥� he explained. 

Their conversation stretched on, covering 鈥渆verything under the sun,鈥� recalls Wilder. In that moment, he forgot the fear and uncertainty of the pandemic world in which they were living. 鈥淚t felt normal,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hings felt normal for a second.鈥�

As they continued to date, at first casually, and then as an official couple by spring 2021, the pair simultaneously navigated COVID surges and the fact that they lived an hour drive apart. It meant that, at times, they relied on video calls for their hangouts. But Wilder was pleasantly surprised to find that the remote dates didn鈥檛 bother him.

鈥淚t feels like I’m just right there with him because the conversation builds that bridge between that virtual gap. 鈥� Whenever I’m just having a conversation with him, it doesn’t feel like it’s there at all,鈥� he said.

As the relationship progressed, Wilder found more and more to love about his partner. He is a great storyteller, he learned, and makes beautiful art on the side. The two share a mutual admiration for each other鈥檚 opposite academic pursuits: Wilder studies political science and public health, while his partner is pursuing psychology and genetics.

鈥淲e both kind of feel like we can take over the world together,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t’s never like, 鈥楨verything is bad, being trans in the South is bad.鈥� It’s like, 鈥業t’s good in this moment, even if it’s just right now in this moment, it’s good.鈥欌��

IRA HABIBA

Stuck inside and feeling lonely at the beginning of lockdown, Ira Habiba was scrolling TikTok when she came across a pen pal site called . Wanting to meet new people, she signed up.

鈥淚 would just, like, close my eyes and pick a random country, and then I鈥檇 pick a random person to talk to,鈥� said the West Quincy, Massachusetts high schooler.

Pretty soon, she was chatting with people from Korea, France and Finland. They added each other on Instagram, and messaged back and forth with conversations that stretched over days and weeks. Her French pen pal would send voice messages in English, and Habiba would respond in 鈥渂roken French,鈥� she said. Her pen pal described living on a farm in the French countryside, where she would tend to horses and cows.

鈥淔or her, you know, living in the countryside, having a farm, those things are simple for her. But to me, it’s like a completely different experience,鈥� Habiba reflected.

Not only did she learn about worlds beyond her Massachusetts suburb, but as the conversations went on, she began to feel comfortable sharing about more vulnerable experiences like her anxiety attacks or moments of emotional distress.

鈥淵ou tend to trust strangers a bit more because you know that they won鈥檛 judge you,鈥� explained Habiba. 鈥淎nd they would listen.鈥�

SAMANTHA FARROW

Samantha Farrow hadn鈥檛 yet completed her freshman year at Stuyvesant High School in Brooklyn, New York when the pandemic shut down in-person classes. Going into sophomore year with only nascent friendships was 鈥渁 little bit scary and a little bit lonely,鈥� she recalled.

But Farrow and some peers took to Zoom for hangouts. Her friends brought their friends. And soon she felt that her social network had become more full. The group played charades and watched Korean dramas. Other times, they鈥檇 log in and each do their own thing.

鈥淓veryone was doing whatever they wanted to do, but we were just there together and it kind of brought this feeling of solace,鈥� said Farrow.

Practically no one she knew was dating during remote learning, she said, and the short flings she heard about mostly fizzled out in a matter of weeks because it was difficult to meet up in person.

鈥淵ou don鈥檛 need anyone, girl. You鈥檙e strong by yourself,鈥� her friends would tell each other. 鈥淵ou can depend on us.鈥�

Now, as school has reopened, Farrow admits that the return to normal socializing hasn鈥檛 always been smooth. 

鈥淚 definitely don鈥檛 look the same so I don鈥檛 know if some people will remember me,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here’s people who I talked to before the pandemic, and I didn’t talk to them during the pandemic. And I don’t know if I should say hi to them or not. So there鈥檚 a lot of, like, awkwardness.鈥�

But with her core group of friends, her relationships are rock solid, she says. They鈥檙e trying to make up for lost time by going over to each other鈥檚 houses whenever possible 鈥� in small groups to stay COVID safe.

鈥淲e just want to take in as much of each other as we can,鈥� said Farrow. 鈥淲e鈥檙e really close now because, like, if you鈥檝e been through a pandemic with someone, I feel like we鈥檙e bonded for life.鈥�

ROHITH RAMAN 

It wasn鈥檛 until prom 2021 that Rohith Raman saw most of his classmates in person during his senior year. He had stayed online as a precaution for the safety of his grandmother, who lives with his family in their Houston home. Other than games of Call of Duty Warzone and FaceTimes here and there, it had been tough to stay in touch with peers who were outside his inner circle.

But he and his friends had long looked forward to bigger social hangouts.

鈥淲e had kind of talked about having a lot of gatherings or hosting stuff. And just having fun with a lot of people,鈥� said Raman. 鈥淧rom was the catalyst for that kind of thing.鈥�

By late spring, he had received both vaccine doses and COVID rates were falling. So he and his friends organized a small pre-prom get-together. At the event, he found himself gravitating to one person in particular. It was a new feeling, because during remote learning, the high schooler hadn鈥檛 developed many crushes 鈥� it had felt pointless knowing they would never be able to meet up, he said. 

But the two kept talking throughout prom and, afterwards, Raman asked her whether she wanted to spend time one-on-one. Despite the awkwardness of re-learning how to socialize in person after so long in quarantine, spending time together over the course of the summer 鈥渨as kind of easy,鈥� said Raman. 鈥淚 kind of knew, at least, what I was feeling.鈥�

Fast-forward eight months, and the pair have parted ways, but the now-college freshman remains grateful for having had the chance to return a small bit of normalcy to his senior year. Now at Tufts University in Boston, waves of increased COVID-19 transmission have forced the school to periodically clamp down on socializing. It has meant that students looking for love often have had to pivot their search online. 

Five or 10 of his friends downloaded the Tinder app in the last week alone, Raman said. He hasn鈥檛 yet, but it probably won鈥檛 be long, he laughed.

鈥淵ou鈥檝e gotta do what you鈥檝e gotta do.鈥�

ESM脡E SILVERMAN

Esm茅e Silverman was in a relationship when COVID-19 struck, and 鈥渂y all accounts we were a happy couple,鈥� she said.

But as someone who felt most at ease with others when she could be physically close, social distancing seemed alien. Her relationship with her girlfriend eventually began to feel more taxing than fulfilling.

鈥淥nline communication is exhausting, and having to rely on that exclusively made everything feel more muddled,鈥� Silverman recalled.

The pair split up. It was a difficult time for many queer youth, said Silverman, who is transgender. Some weren鈥檛 out to their parents and/or relied on spaces outside their family鈥檚 household in order to be their most authentic selves. But in lockdown, that was all taken away.

鈥淚 had heavily relied on physical spaces and physical gatherings to meet other queer youth, especially through my school鈥檚 鈥� said the Easton, Massachusetts teen. 鈥淭hat was gone within the blink of an eye.鈥�

But the young person found ways to cope. She met with other queer youth virtually, and eventually, when she was ready to consider romance again, began casually dating some people she met online. She noticed that on many dating app profiles, people shared political views like 鈥淏LM鈥� or 鈥淪top Asian Hate,鈥� which, to her, seemed like a shift. 

鈥淏eforehand, the common consensus was politics were best kept quiet until a few dates in,鈥� she said. 鈥淭oday, they are fueling matches in a way that common interests do. Queer people are tired of having to break down complex political and social nuances to confused potential dates, and now prefer to be more straightforward.鈥�

Reflecting on the last two years, Silverman can trace her inner growth.

鈥淭he experience of being locked down and the move to a virtual environment definitely hit a reset button in me, it allowed me to figure out what I individually needed in relationships,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 was alone and able to focus on myself and my needs.鈥�

Over the past 700 days, as the pandemic swept the globe disrupting education for millions of children, the district of just 14 schools and 7,109 children regularly provided parents and the community with photos and videos on its social media feeds 鈥斅燿etermined to capture a range of moments, from the anxiety of those first few days at school to the joy of being with friends and supportive educators.

Tupelo has an 鈥渙pen campus policy,鈥� said district marketing and communications director Gregg Ellis, with parents once freely walking through the schools, showing up to have lunch with their children or meet with teachers. 

Once COVID hit all that changed. Parents were barred from school buildings. Determined to provide parents with some access, Ellis and his team got to work.

鈥淲e didn’t want our parents to not know what’s going on at the schools. We still wanted them to get a feel for what was happening,鈥� Ellis said. 鈥淲e felt we had to amp up our game so that while they were not able to go into the schools … they could still see what their children were doing.

Sometimes that included photos that portrayed anxiety and uncertainty in children. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 purposely capture them, but there were some tense moments,鈥� said Ellis, 鈥渂ecause of the unknown 鈥� My philosophy has just been to capture everyday life in the moment of children and teachers interacting.鈥�

Prospective families, and parents with children newly enrolled in Tupelo schools were particularly disadvantaged, unable to attend in-person tours or back-to-school nights.

鈥淪ome parents were never inside our buildings for the first two years … They had no idea what their child’s [class]room looks like, what the gyms look like 鈥� the music halls, so we wanted them to see and experience that,鈥� Ellis explained.

The city of Tupelo likes to tout itself as the birthplace of Elvis Presley. Fair enough. But the Tupelo school district has had its share of recognition: named Tupelo the best-in-class for photography and web design among school districts in 2020.

鈥淓ach high-quality image is full of life and school pride and ensures that the colors in the photos compliment that of the website,鈥� Finalsite鈥檚 Mia Major.

During the pandemic, the qualities Finalsite recognized in how Tupelo portrayed school life became a necessity. Soon the district鈥檚 social media accounts were filled with posts and photos of school life going on despite the challenges, of tentative students welcomed back by comforting teachers, and unique graduations.

鈥淲e decided early on we weren’t going to hide that we’re going to go in and capture kids still engaged, still learning, to show parents who were relying on these images more than ever,鈥� said a Tupelo district鈥檚 photographer, Ryan Coon.

New school year begins 鈥� With some changes and challenges  

At the start of the 2021-22 school year, with parents barred from entering schools, teachers met their young students outside, taking on the role of comforting first-day nerves.

Parents learn to say goodbye outside schools. 

鈥淚 just didn’t want the parents to lose complete sight of what our schools are like,鈥� Gregg said. 

Preparing to go back to class

On the first day of school, teachers from a Tupelo elementary school wore T-shirts that read 鈥淒edicated teacher even from a distance.鈥� 鈥淭hey were so positive and uplifting,鈥� said Ellis. 

Teachers were trained to take temperatures with handheld thermometers and social-distance reminders were posted around school buildings. 

鈥淚 tell people all the time: The two safest places in Tupelo were the hospital and our school district,鈥� Ellis said. 鈥淏ecause, one, we required masks. We required social distancing. We were cleaning and spraying and fogging after every class.鈥�

To avoid big groups from gathering in the cafeteria, free breakfast was served outside to each student at Milam Elementary School.

Life and learning continues through COVID

Once inside, learning commenced with the addition of a few modifications that took some getting used to.

Even behind masks, body language and eyes can say a lot about the 鈥渢ense moments 鈥� because of the unknown鈥� Ellis referred to.

In the past, Coon said he mainly aimed his camera toward students with big, bright smiles. He said beaming faces were 鈥渁n obvious statement to the community that said 鈥榟ey, we’re happy, we love it at school.鈥欌��

Soon, he realized the importance of zooming in on students鈥� eyes to capture 鈥淪mize鈥� 鈥� smiling with eyes. He also relied way more on a classic thumbs-up.

While making his rounds snapping shots of masked-up learners, Coon never heard students complain about wearing them. Other than not seeing their smiles, it was as if they 鈥渨eren鈥檛 even wearing them.鈥�

鈥淚 was in classrooms on a daily basis. I never heard kids arguing about masks or upset by them. They just did it鈥� as evident in this photo of two young boys peacefully reading, Coon said.

On picture day, the high school鈥檚 therapy dog, Wavely, showed off his protective school spiritwear.

鈥淲avely has been there to provide an extra boost and extra love for students and staff,鈥� Coon said. 鈥淪he was training to become [a therapy dog] before COVID 鈥� but has been such an added part of helping some students with the anxiety of such a different couple of years.鈥�

During the two years of the pandemic, there were times when it was just teachers in the classroom working remotely. 

Even outside the classroom, school life went on

Although COVID didn鈥檛 allow for some of years鈥� past celebrations, Coon continued to capture other aspects of school life outside of the classroom, from spelling bees to band practice, football games, pre-exam parades, homecoming of a military dad, Halloween, recess and more.

Rather than always telling students to pose for a shot, Coon preferred capturing them engaged with their surroundings.

鈥淚t’s just telling a story, and capturing the moments that are happening. I like to show parents photos of their students engaged,鈥� said Coon.

Out with a bang, and a mask

For the class of 2020, graduation was split into four different locations and families were brought in one at a time 鈥渂asically to have their moment with their child, and then had to leave for the next family and student to come in,鈥� Coon said.

鈥淎nd then we had a big firework show downtown that could drive by afterwards,鈥� he added.

Ellis recalled receiving many grateful responses from parents for how the district handled graduation for a class that missed out on many other senior year experiences. 鈥淭hey said, 鈥榟ey, this is not what we wanted, but you gave my child something special.鈥欌��

One mom joked with Ellis about how 鈥渃ool it was to get that close to the stage and get great pictures.鈥� She couldn鈥檛 do that at her older children鈥檚 graduation. 

A year later, the Class of 2021 graduated together in one space, with a new addition to the cap and gown outfit 鈥� royal blue Tupelo High School masks.

Despite a challenging year, Coon said he was determined to 鈥渟how people how much goes on in the building and all that the staff and teachers do for these kids.”

Photos by Ryan Coon / Tupelo School District