HARTFORD, Conn. – After a knock on his door, third-grade student Jamie-Lee emerged to see his school principal smiling at him from his doorstep.
She held out her arms, offering a socially distant “air hug,” and told the boy how much she’d missed him since the pandemic closed their school building.
As they chatted, Principal Tayarisha Batchelor picked up on a clue to the question that brought her to the apartment. The boy was not looking up from a smartphone.
Twice, she asked what he was doing on it before he confirmed her suspicions: He was playing video games. “I like playing games,” Batchelor told the boy as his parents looked on, before suggesting he spend more time first on his daily schoolwork.