Like much of America, my kids went back to school last week. Of course, by “back to school,” I actually mean back to a series of Zoom calls and asynchronous distance learning. And, by “distance learning,” I mean very little actual learning. The normal excitement and anticipation of the first day of school never happened this year. It pretty much felt like any other Monday, just with a few more internet hiccups than usual.

Also like much of the country, the decision about how to start school here was bitterly debated. I pity the superintendent for our local Sequoia Union High School District. She has people with pitchforks closing in all around. On one side, our local teachers union has come out with a vendetta to get the superintendent fired. The president of the Sequoia District Teachers Association declared, “Our members did not feel like their health and safety was not paramount to the district.” On the other side is an angry mob of parents — one of whom posted, "If the teachers union is against her, she must be doing things right!!! The teacher's union is all about themselves and never about the best interests of the students.” Another asked, "How the teachers are different from any other essential worker? School is essential and teacher should be essential workers.” Indeed.

After locking up in crisis mode for the last four months of the academic calendar last year with no grades, no real curriculum and no plan to salvage the year, our school system has started this school year with a whimper. Initial plans to implement a "hybrid learning environment” of 50% in-person classes supplemented with online learning were ultimately scrapped. The school district caved to the teacher’s union and went to a fully remote distance learning plan. They’ve been calling for the superintendent’s head ever since. All this was rendered irrelevant when Governor Newsom put our county on the dreaded watch list, forcing schools to shut down and handing victory to the teachers’ union. I get that it’s hard to be a teacher — my mom and one of my sisters are both teachers. They don’t get paid enough for the important work they do. But it’s the students who have been left holding the bag.

Academically, this year has been a gigantic disappointment, at least in our school district which is one of the best public school systems in the country. Many of my sons’ classes have been operating at a fraction of their normal course load. A PE class only challenged students to a single push up, and then ended class 30 minutes early. Wednesdays are essentially off days. The response to “have you done your homework?” has been “I don’t have any homework.” Much of the class doesn’t participate, hidden behind the blank screen of their Zoom logins. I wish I had the time or expertise to home school my kids, but I’m not an educator — plus I already don’t understand most of what they’re studying so I would be worthless.

Equally disappointing is the social aspect. I have a senior and freshman in high school. Much of what they are learning at these ages is beyond the textbooks. They are learning how to get along with others. How to be leaders, resolve conflicts, navigate awkward conversations and collaborate on hard problems. That social aspect of the educational process is completely missing. They aren’t meeting new friends. They aren’t struggling with uncomfortable social situations. They are barely interacting with anyone outside their immediate friend group. My sons have described online break-out sessions where other students turn off their camera, mute their microphone and simply refuse to participate — if they are even there at all. Remote learning has enabled the most anti-social behavior and cloaked it in a veil of legitimacy. We haven’t even made it to Labor Day and it already feels like a wasted year.

I get both sides of this debate. The conservative in me recognizes that the risks to teenagers of COVID-19 are low. Why not let them have a semi-normal educational experience? Red-state schools like this one in Georgia are sending their students back. If you’re worried, wear a mask, strictly optional. The liberal in me recognizes that the spread of COVID among students could infect higher-risk populations of parents and grandparents. And laments the tragically inept federal response. If we had taken this seriously early, we might actually be able to return to classrooms and restaurants and other every-day activities like most of the rest of the world.

Like everything in this epically awful year, all we can do is persevere. Hope that this pandemic is teaching our kids resiliency, rather than simply robbing them of the formative years many of us look back on with great nostalgia. The memories we have of proms and football games and graduations will, for them, be replaced by video conferences, headphones and glitchy internet connections. As my oldest said, “It is what it is.” Hopefully, that’s resilience talking.

Back to Zchool