Returning to school amid a delta surge: Willingboro teens speak out

The coronavirus pandemic isn’t over, and rising COVID-19 cases nationwide — driven by the highly transmissible delta variant — beg the question as to when it will be.

But certain aspects of life have slowly returned to pre-pandemic norms, such as in-person learning for school-aged children and sporting events with live crowds. Still, there are caveats, such as mask and vaccine mandates.

So how are students experiencing this moment? What do they think of the recent mandates and the return to school amid a continuous stream of grim COVID news? Do they feel heard? And are we, as a society, actually listening?

WHYY and BoroTV, a grassroots news and information service providing Willingboro residents timely public affairs content, teamed up to produce a short docu-film about the delta variant and back-to-school.

Coordination and voiceovers for this film were done by WHYY’s Community Curator for Willingboro Amy Dean and BoroTV CEO Terry McCollum. Camera operations and editing were done by Gary Nelson of MVP Productions.