As a new year starts, schools prepare for fewer masks, more learning and joy
More than 50 million children are slowly returning to classrooms for the new school year — the third year in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the first year was defined by widespread school closures, and the second by bitter fights over masking, what stories will define this year?
For answers, we went to one of the earliest districts to open this summer.
Hot butter
Jackson Public Schools serve more than twenty thousand students in Mississippi's capital city. In August, walking feels like swimming in hot butter. The grits, though, are incredible because they're swimming in hot butter.
At North Jackson Elementary, kindergarteners line up outside as teachers and staff crowd the curbs in bright orange tee-shirts, cheering families and handing out stickers to students to make clear how they'll be getting home: bus or car.
Nearly all children arrive wearing cloth masks; Jackson was unusual last year in that it required them. This year, though, masks are optional.
The Jackson district's superintendent, Errick Greene, hurries across the street in a forest-green and blue plaid jacket. Bald on top with
