COVID-19 is rapidly becoming a major challenge faced globally. New variants are constantly being discovered by scientists and doctors. How exactly are these new variants affecting schools and what can be done by those in leadership positions at schools to keep everyone safe? These are the questions pondered by many Americans right now. Before talking about the effects that COVID has on schools, it is important to be familiar with the different COVID variants. The two that are currently causing the most concern in schools are the Delta variant and the Omicron variant. They differ from each other because the Omicron variant spreads much faster than the Delta variant. This is a concern for schools because they are packed with students who risk the possibility of getting sick from the easily transmissible virus. “It’s chaos as Schools Confront Omicron,” writes Dana Olsen from the New York Times. The Omicron variant has caused many school closures due to how contagious it is. The holiday break in December 2021 caused a huge spike in COVID cases. This led to places such as Newark, Atlanta, Milwaukee and Cleveland temporarily partaking in remote learning for more than 450,000 children. Over 300 million students worldwide are living in countries with partial or complete school closures. Remote learning provided a solution to the issue regarding schooling during the end of the 2019-2020 school year and in many places the duration of the 2020-2021 school year. Many schools want to remain open despite the prevalence of the Omicron variant for reasons involving the better quality of education for children in in-person learning environments. According to the Washington Post, U.N. agencies have called for classrooms to remain open, arguing that another round of widespread disruptions would be ‘disastrous’ for children. Many believe that children spending more time learning virtual would be detrimental to them and would have major effects on their education.