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Abbott Elementary – Strike
By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell
Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) have a nail appointment, but they are disappointed to learn that since most of the nail techs rely on public transit, there is no one to work on them. Julie (Crystal Lee), Barbara’s usual nail tech, lives close by so Barbara goes to pick her up and brings her to Abbott. When Janine (Quinta Brunson) walks in on Melissa and Barbara getting their nails done, they explain that taking her to the nail shop would be scabbing. However, while she’s there Janine agrees to get her nails done.
Later at the staff meeting Ava (Janelle James) informs everyone that with Septa on strike the buses, trolleys and trains are out of commission. Although, she drives a Lexis so none of this directly impacts her. A lot of Abbott Elementary students rely on the city’s transportation, but the district says it’s going to be business as usual. Barbara says she knew this was going to happen, but Gregory (Tyler James Williams) reminds her she said it wouldn’t happen. Barbara doesn’t see the point in dwelling on the past, but Gregory says it never hurts to be reminded of things you said.
To everyone’s surprise, Ava is pro-labor because she hates bosses. More to the point, Barbara says that this is going to cause attendance problems. Still, Janine has faith that the parents know how important school is and will find a way to get their kids to school. Speaking of getting here, Jacob (Chris Perfetti) notices that Mr. Morton isn’t here because he lost his car in the divorce. Jacob for his part took his bike to school because Melissa didn’t want to scab by driving him to work.
When class is in session, Janine’s kids are supposed to be doing a solar system project, but since some students are missing planets are missing as well. With the test results showing her this year’s class is made up of visual learners, she’s been focusing on hands-on lessons. In the middle of the lesson a parent brings her daughter in and tells Janine that she had to call in late to work to drive her. Since she can’t be late again tomorrow, she doesn’t know if her daughter will be present for the next school day. Janine is optimistic and says all the city has to do is meet Septa’s demands, but the parent doesn’t think the city cares.
Janine goes to talk to Melissa and Melissa is watching strike coverage, Janine hopes the strike ends soon but Melissa never wants it to end. In Jacob’s class, most of the students are gone because most of his students rely on Septa. He tries to manifest all of his students returning by tomorrow, but the students say they live too far to walk. In fact, Brandon (Dax Rey) has to leave now if he wants to be home before dark.
When it’s lunchtime Gregory is filling in for Shenae the lunch lady because she takes the bus and there’s no bus to take. While he’s in the kitchen he’s trying to convince people to not default to chocolate milk, but Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) says that chocolate milk is his drink of choice.
Jacob goes to Ava and tells her he’s worried about attendance due to the strike. When he explains he only had seven students in first period and the numbers went down, Ava says maybe his students don’t like him enough to show up. However, Barbara says her students love her but half of them were still missing. With that in mind, Ava tells them to do remote learning. But there are a couple of problems with that: 1) teaching remotely is hard and that 2) the school’s internet is terrible. Ava says she’ll text O’Shon (Matthew Law) and get him to upgrade it.
On day two of the strike attendance does in fact get worse and more of the solar system in Janine’s class is missing. On the upside, she says, the city and the union are sitting down to negotiate so she thinks this’ll be over soon. When Janine is trying to reassure the students who are sad about the missing planets and kids, Janine gets excited when she hears Melissa cheering. She assumed the cheering meant that Septa and the city came to an agreement, but in reality, the union walked away from the table.
In the teacher’s lounge, Janine says she hopes the strike will end soon as she’s down to twelve students. Melissa explains that in the world of strikes, pain creates change, so the city needs to stop being greedy. Then, Ava announces O’Shon’s arrival and says he didn’t take the bus because he owns a car. O’Shon corrects her and explains that he leases a used car, but at any rate he’s going to set everything up for remote learning.
Unfortunately, this won’t help Janine because she just learned her class learns best through hands-on lessons. Melissa tells her if she wants to solve this that she’d need to get union-friendly city council members elected, so remote learning is her best bet. Speaking of that, Barbara is really struggling. Half of her class is there, and the other half is online. Therefore, she’s teaching in two different formats. Some of her students can’t see her because the monitor is blocking her face and the other half is struggling to stay on task, particularly a little girl named Hazel who is banging pots and pans.
In Jacob’s class he’s struggling to keep everyone’s attention, particularly a girl named Chloe (Amani Diggs) who keeps having to step away to deal with a ruckus. Janine is still bummed out about the low attendance rates, but adapting a hands-on lesson for remote learning is still hard. She tries to get the kids to remember how many moons Mars has, but the remote kids decide to use their animal filters which distracts them. She reluctantly comes to the conclusion that the project should be pushed back, which really upsets a little girl named Lila (Zinnia Nzolameso) who has been really excited about the solar system.
Lila’s enthusiasm makes Janine resolve to keep going. Gregory’s garden goofballs are virtually having lunch with Alex (Mason Renfro) in person and the rest of the boys on tablets. When O’Shon checks in on the functionality of the tablets, he and Gregory learn that they both like to play basketball. O’Shon invites him to his friends’ pre-work basketball game at 6 am, which Gregory says will still leave time for his morning workout.
Elsewhere, Charlie (Pier Peters) is very disappointed when Lila doesn’t show up because he really wanted to do the project with her. Janine exclaims that this cannot stand and tells Melissa that they lost Lila, the student who was the most excited to learn about the solar system. Melissa gets where Janine is coming from yet points out that the workers shouldn’t have to accept a bad contract. She says they have to let the strike run its course. Then, she remembers that Barbara picked up her nail lady, so she can pick up all her students. Although, Melissa reminds her that her car can only take so many students. As it turns out, Janine has a commercial license so she can pick them up in a city bus. The problem with that is that it would make Janine a scab. Melissa tells her that people don’t have a high opinion of scabs so even though it sucks, they’ve got to ride it out.
Barbara tells Melissa about a problem she’s having with her student Hazel in the teacher’s lounge. As it turns out, when she’s in person Hazel is calm and well-behaved but with remote learning, she’s incredibly disruptive. Jacob says he’s having a similar problem with his student Chloe who keeps stepping away to attend to chaos. They realize that Chloe and Hazel are siblings and when Chloe steps away she’s settling Hazel down and neither of them can learn when their classes are happening at the same time.
At the bar Janine tells Gregory that O’Shon seems nice and she’s happy he made a friend. Gregory doesn’t get why people assume he doesn’t have friends. Janine is disappointed that she can’t watch the basketball game because she needs a distraction. She hates that she can’t help the students without helping the workers. Gregory reminds her that some problems are bigger than them and a solution won’t appear out of thin air. That is when a party bus pulls up to the bar that they’re at. Its passengers are Ava and her friends who are doing a bar crawl. When Ava explains that she time shares the party bus, Janine gets an idea that Gregory tries to discourage.
Janine is not discouraged and gets all the parents’ permission to use the party bus to bring her students to school. Melissa shows up too to make sure that Janine isn’t a scab. Now, they’ve got an hour and a half to get twenty kids to school in time for breakfast.
Back at Abbott we see Barbara and Jacob are sitting down with Chloe to problem-solve. Since Chloe can’t learn if she’s busy getting Hazel to pay attention, Jacob and Barbara agreed to let Hazel play from 7:00 to 8:00 so Jacob can go over an abbreviated lesson plan with Chloe. It’s not ideal, but Chloe will have work to do throughout the day and she won’t fall behind. Chloe agrees to the plan and will help Hazel get focused at 8:00, but it won’t be fun. Barbara sympathizes but says hopefully the strike won’t last much longer.
Janine continues picking up kids and warding off adults who try to hitch a ride. They’re cutting it close on time and Janine has to take a shortcut with Melissa’s guidance to avoid crossing a picket line. They manage to make it to school just in time and we see Gregory and O’Shon coming from their basketball game, which went well. On camera, Janine says she supports the drivers and wants them to get everything they’re asking for, but as educators they’re always going to go the extra mile for their students. So, they do whatever it takes. We then watch Janine get some lessons on playing basketball from an aggressive Gregory.
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