Students, seeing lax coronavirus protocols, walk out and call in sick to protest in-person classes

A student’s Reddit post about absent teachers, covid-19 risks and a lack of learning at another New York high school had more than 8,000 upvotes, which are similar to likes.Cruz Warshaw, 16, a junior at Stuyvesant High School who helped organize the protest, said that New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks reached out after the walkout and said he wanted to meet with the students involved. Did you know?’” she said.Around the same time, Cantor opened an email from the school district of 160,000 saying that more coronavirus cases had been reported between Dec. 1 and Dec. 19 — roughly 1,500 — than were reported between the start of school in late August and the last day of November.She pictured her high school, which is home to 2,000 students and where masks are required but the enforcement varies. “And that’s when I got worried,” said Cantor, who is both vaccinated and boosted.So last Friday, she wrote and published a petition on Change.org asking for “virtual learning right now.”“Amid the recent surge of COVID cases in the country, specifically the omicron variant, it is unsafe to hold students in schools that do not mandate any social distancing and allow masks to be taken off,” the petition reads.Not expecting much, Cantor texted the link to six friends and posted about it on her private Instagram, where she has 800 followers. A school spokesperson did not return a request for comment.Across the country, in Oakland, a boycott of classes informally began Thursday and students say it will continue until better masks and coronavirus tests arrive at their schools.Ayleen Serrano, a 15-year-old sophomore at MetWest High, said she does not buy the arguments she is hearing from her school system — and adults generally — on the importance of in-person learning.“The district is like, ‘Oh no, we shouldn’t do [remote school] because of the students’ mental health,’” Ayleen said.