How COVID set the stage for Columbus' teachers strike

Now the devices give the district a fallback during the strike, meaning substitute teachers don't have to physically cross a picket line to be in the "classroom."

Context: It's not just Columbus. Pickerington threatened online classes last year due to overcrowding as it pursues levy funds for a new junior high school.

Of note: In the largely online 2020-21 school year, 75% of Columbus students were chronically absent, per the district's state report card.

Meanwhile, teachers are still experiencing a paradigm shift to access more leverage in the pandemic's wake, Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, tells Axios.

• "I think it just finally hit people at a core level, that they can and should have a voice … and that they don't have to just step in line and do whatever they're told," she says..