Teachers feel frustrated and afraid. Parents are overburdened. Guidance from officials has been scant. For the schools preparing to welcome students back next month, nothing about the planning process has been easy. On Episode 14 of The Politics of Everything, the writer Keith Gessen joins hosts Alex Pareene and Laura Marsh to talk about why the city’s fight to safely return kids to public schools has been so difficult. 

Later in the episode, J.C. Pan, a staff writer at The New Republic, explains what makes the current downturn a “shesession,” and how efforts to alleviate its effects on women must take more than gender into consideration.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices