Note: This blog post was edited, honed down, and generally made better in the latest newsletter.

Ian’s school, like almost all schools in NJ and nearly half the schools in the country, is hybrid. Students attend school for in-person instruction every other day; one week they have two mornings (over at 12:45), the next week, it’s three days. When they are not in school, students watch their teacher and fellow students in little boxes on a Zoom call. Students also have one 30-minute remote class in the afternoon, which is optional — there’s a 50/50 chance that nothing will happen after 12:45.

Because Ian’s an IEP student, Ian gets a little more school than the other kids; he attends school five mornings per week. But he is often the only student in the room. His school is a ghost town.

Ian’s pre-calc math class normally has 30 students. With hybrid instruction, the number of students in the classroom is cut in half to 15 students. But those students aren’t showing up. The state has said that any student can opt to do their classes remotely, never stepping foot inside a school. Since last fall, more and more students are opting to stay home, doing their classes in the PJs, rather than showing up to school.

Parents tell me that they allow their students to stay home, because the kids would rather do their classes in the PJs. It’s comfy and easy. Sometimes it takes the school bus forty minutes to pick up all the kids and snake through local traffic, so the kids have decided to skip their commute. They don’t want to go to school, when their friends aren’t there.

Continue reading “Ghost Town Schools” →