Chalkbeat hosted a conversation Tuesday to ask how schools should adapt this year to meet their communities’ mental health needs.

Mily Cepeda started teaching two decades ago but was in her first year at Louise A. Spencer Elementary School in Newark when the pandemic struck.

Nancy Yeh, an MIT graduate, teaches at Bronx Latin in New York City. Here’s why she says the school year marked by COVID-19 was anything but “lost.”