The Year the System Failed Us

In March 2020, I was the librarian at Baltimore City College, or “City,” a school filled with dedicated teachers and students with great academic promise. But when the pandemic hit and schools closed, everything changed. My students, once on clear paths to college, were suddenly knocked off course. I began recording their thoughts about virtual learning, convinced that if the school understood how bad things were, they would step in. But as the year dragged on, my students weren’t just slipping through the cracks; they were being pushed and abandoned by a system that had promised to care. Over half of our 311 seniors were failing. These were students from the top 20% of middle school achievers, and now many—particularly non-white students who had never struggled academically before—were at risk of not graduating high school. I fought with everything I had. I compiled data, shared stories, and practically begged for someone to take these kids’ experiences seriously. I believed we could work together to find solutions. Instead, I was dismissed as “crazy” and told my advocacy had made me a “pariah.” I couldn’t believe the lack of foresight. As one student put it, “They don't realize that by making things harder, there's a higher chance of running into problems. And those problems become even harder.” He was right, and no honest person could deny it. Pandemic schooling changed students' relationships with schools. I’ll share videos, recordings, texts, and interviews from 2020-2023 to help reveal how and why. We can’t fix our schools while we continue to hide the parts we’ve broken. Thanks for reading Now What! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennibgaither.substack.com