Reddit: NY High School Student’s “Beyond Control” COVID School Experience

The following post appeared on Reddit on Wednesday, January 05, 2022, with brief update added on Thursday, January 06, 2022. Although the piece is written by a high school student in New York City and portrays attending school in NYC in the throes of omicron COVID, I can relate to much about this student’s experiences and perspective even as I am teaching in-person in a Louisiana high school. (We don’t have the testing, but we do have the herding of classes into larger spaces such as the gym, auditorium, and cafeteria.)

(Aside: Even as I am composing this post, NYC mayor, Eric Adams, is on CNN boasting of the abundance of testing available in NYC schools and that “we’ve proved that” having students in school is working.)

I Am a New York City Public High School Student. The Situation is Beyond Control.

I’d like to preface this by stating that…