‘Next year will be a better year’: An oral history of year three of pandemic schooling, Part III

Our reporters have spent the last 10 months speaking with students, parents, teachers and school district leaders around the country about what this pandemic school year has been like.

Few are sad to see it end. This school year was a rocky one, marked by a tough transition back to buildings after months of virtual learning and Covid outbreaks that continued to disrupt learning.

But as spring arrived, some of the difficulties began to ease. In Fayetteville, Arkansas, field days and large, in-person graduation ceremonies returned. In Philadelphia, assessment tests showed that older students had more or less caught up to where they were pre-pandemic, although younger students still lagged behind, said William Hite, the outgoing superintendent of the city’s schools.