Students are expressing their frustration over returning to in-person school amid the COVID-19 Omicron wave.

Students are expressing their frustration over returning to in-person school amid the COVID-19 Omicron wave. As students and educators head back to school post-winter break, the Omicron variant is raising concern over whether in-person schooling should even be happening right now. One teacher recently took to TikTok (@mbanks1860) to share memes her students created about returning from winter break as Omicron cases surge, while Gabe Walczewski, a high school sophomore in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, explains how frustrating it is to return to school when there’s a clear lack of internal resources: “Coming back from winter break was a bit of a surprise for me. We are seeing a shortage of teachers.” Meanwhile, a local Chicago teachers union voted last week to stay home from their schools due to rising cases and a lack of protections in place, and students at Brooklyn Technical High School in New York staged a walkout on Tuesday (January 11) to protest the school’s in-person teaching mandates. According to Burbio, as many as 4,700 schools were closed to some extent during the first week of 2022. Problems stemming from the education system have been exacerbated since the start of COVID-19, and students (and their teachers) are calling on school authorities to create a safer environment for everyone involved. (Teen Vogue, Bloomberg)