The teacher strike has ended, but concerns about future fallout for students remain after 11 days without school in Newton, Massachusetts.
"The most chaotic thing as a senior is that my transcripts aren't being sent to colleges right now," Newton North High School senior Betina Kreiman told NBC10 Boston Friday.
For most high school seniors, the college admissions process adds an extra layer of stress to the final year of high school. For Kreiman, the frenzy to send in applications now includes explaining to each college why her transcripts will be sent in late.
"I've had to email each one, one by one to make sure that they are aware of the situation that my grades are gonna be sent late," Kreiman said.
Newton School teachers say they tried to send as many grades in before the strike as possible, but high schools in the city still face the responsibility of scrambling to get those grades after schools reopen Monday.
"This is the population of students that I'm most concerned about right now so I think we’re going to be pretty creative about how we solve this," said Ethan Peritz, a math teacher for Newton North High School.
Peritz says the school continues to communicate with their colleges through their interface system SCOIR.
On Saturday the principal for Newton South High School, Tamara Stras, sent a letter out to their college admissions partners, explaining the delay, saying in part, "I wanted to assure you that neither the student nor the school are intentionally delaying the process and as a result, we would ask that the student not be penalized in the admissions process because of this."
Another emerging concern is how students and teachers will make up the missed school days. On Thursday, the Newton School Committee voted to cancel February vacation in order to make up some of the school days missed from the strike.
“We know that are going to deliver 180 days of high-quality education to our students so I’m happy to give those days wherever they make sense,” said Peritz.
While the School Committee said there will be no penalty for students who cannot make it in during February break, students like Aneesha Aryan, a freshman at Newton North High School, who already made plans to visit California during that time, are more worried about the work missed during that time.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to cancel now so now I’m gonna have to be making up the work,” said Aryan.
