Students Are Walking Out Over COVID

Last semester was bad, but this one has been worse. The pandemic—and the United States’ haphazard response to it—has presented parents and teachers with unpleasant choice after unpleasant choice when it comes to kids’ education. But even by pandemic standards, the highly contagious Omicron variant has brought a special level of chaos to schools.

This month, teens across the country have been adding their voices to the , which has so far been dominated by adults—by parents, teachers, and politicians. Last week, students from in New York City participated in a walkout, and students, , and did the same. Many of them feel frustrated and unsafe. Like teachers, “we’re the ones encountering the problem every single day because we’re coming to school and we’re around a bunch of people, some who don’t wear masks [and] some who do,” says Gianna Pizarro, a 15-year-old sophomore at Burncoat High School, in Worcester, Massachusetts who participated in a walkout.