Hechinger Report: The job of middle school principal has often felt impossible — but never more so than during COVID-19. I remember sitting in my Bronx, N.Y., office with my assistant principals on March 13 speculating about if, when and for how long we would close. That moment feels like a lifetime ago, before this deadly and contagious pandemic took almost 200,000 lives and robbed a generation of a year of in-person school. Now, as we prepare for brick-and-mortar instruction for the first time since then, I understand a little more the enormous impact COVID has had on our educational system and the terrible Catch-22 we really face.