Students arrive for the first day of the school year at Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brooklyn on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)

Students arrive for the first day of the school year at Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brooklyn on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021. New York City’s classrooms reopened on Monday to roughly a million children, most of whom were returning for the first time since the United States’ largest school system closed in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)