It was in late March that Juan Constantino, 17, began contemplating whether to abandon his education and instead work full time to help his family pay bills. 

He's not alone. As summer break begins and the economy dips into a recession, principals at some Los Angeles public schools in low-income neighborhoods are beginning to ask an uncomfortable question about working-age students such as Constantino: Could some of them be at risk of dropping out?

It’s one thing to have a philosophy, and another to put it into practice. This spring's abrupt shift to remote instruction pushed Laura Tilghman, an assistant professor of anthropology at Plymouth State University, to rethink aspects of her job that had once been assumed—and to figure out what really mattered to her as a teacher.