

There’s silence, then: “Hello? Are you there? What’s going on?” Eventually we were able to get back in touch with him, and he said he’d been rear-ended, and the other driver took off after they hit him. I was observing the class, and my heart dropped. He was participating, and then a question was specifically asked to him, and at that moment you could hear metal crunch, and the phone fell off the dashboard. The kids were in class onscreen, and he was in his car driving to work. We had a student - a top student, a great kid. Teachers could tell when kids were at work because it’s a higher ceiling than their bedrooms’. The norm was that the camera be on, but especially as time went on, the kids often had it pointed at the ceiling. Teachers started reporting that students were in class on Zoom while, for example, moving boxes at a warehouse. Principal, Woodlawn Campus High School University of Chicago Charter School Interview by Carlo Rotella
