Join us for this special hosted by ABC News Anchor Deborah Roberts. Deborah reports on the levels of lead in school water, which remain concerningly high in some areas across the nation. The report will also examine a school district in New York that is being likened to the Flint, Michigan, water crisis and is being accused of violating the rights of Black and Latino students for failing to address the problem adequately seven years after it was identified.
ABC News correspondent Mireya Villareal reports on the teacher shortages facing classrooms since the pandemic, with reporting on one Dallas suburban school district’s efforts to recruit and retain teachers, profiling two educators who entered the field through unique paths, and a veteran administrator who is working to get more teachers into the classroom.
Byron Pitts will have an in-depth report into the nationwide spike in chronic absenteeism in schools across the country in a post-COVID world, systematic failures that lead to this issue and how schools are working to get students back on track. The report will include interviews with teens who have dropped out, truancy officers who go door-to-door to engage with absent students, a physician’s assistant who runs an in-school medical clinic to help kids who have chronic health issues, and a Nashville juvenile court judge who works with kids to prevent their dropout rates from going even higher.
