The whole post is worth reading but here are the headline quotes:
today there were 14 absent teachers 1st period
Second period I had another absent teacher. More of the same from 1st period. It was around this time that 25% of kids, including myself, realized that there were no rules being enforced outside of attendance at the start of the period, and that cutting lass was ridiculously easy. We left...
90% of the bathrooms were full of students swabbing their noses and taking their tests. I had one kid ask me -- with his mask down, by the way -- whether a "faint line was positive," proceeding to show me his positive COVID test.
I should note that in study hall and with subs we literally learn nothing. I spent about 3 hours sitting around today doing nothing.
By January the 3rd (when we returned from break) the numbers were up to 100 (as listed on the school Google Sheet). Today there are 226. This is around 10% of my school.
90% of the conversations spoken by students concern COVID.
One teacher flat out left his class 5 mins into the lesson and didn't return because he was developing symptoms
NYC views itself as progressive but honestly it treats most of its teachers like shit. It's unbelievable how inadequate and ramshackle the education system is in poor/working class areas, while a fifteen minute subway ride away sit some of the most prestigious universities in the world... I feel like an entire mini-generation is being permanently damaged by having their childhood stolen away from them capitalists whose fortunes depend on greasing the wheels of the financial system with the blood of the poor, and I only hope that some of the traumatized Zoomers realize who is really to blame for their mental impoverishment.
There's that scene in Children of Men that I wish was more fleshed out... Clive Owen is taking a car ride to see his brother. Society all around is exactly like how you describe, but for a few moments the car goes through I think Hyde Park. It shows a very ceremonial looking procession of those fancy English soldiers on horseback. There's seemly some rich folks walking around exotic pets and listening to a brass band. Really hits home how the rich especially will try to insulate themselves and pretend it's all OK (for them at least).