The coronavirus pandemic changed education in the United States forever. It cast a critical light on school financing, the ability of students, teachers, and parents to adapt to a new scholastic landscape, and gave teachers unions more power than they’ve had in a generation. In this series, the Washington Examiner takes a closer look at the toll the pandemic had on our nation’s public school system and the lessons learned along the way.
RICHMOND, Virginia — It was like an early Spring Break.
At least that’s what Maya Shuman and her friends at Robious Middle School thought when they were told last March they’d be out of school for a couple of weeks because of COVID-19.
“Everybody was like, ‘Sweet! We have two weeks off from school!’ but halfway through the first week, everyone was watching the news, and it was like, ‘Wait, why are we out of school again?” she told the Washington Examiner. “Then it just kept getting longer and longer, and halfway through April, people were like ‘OK, we’re not going back to school this year, are we?”
They were not.
Shuman, then 13 years old, asked her parents what was going on. Her father, a teacher, and her mother, a medical professional, didn’t pull any punches.
www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/students-left-behind-effects-school-closures-one-year