How to Get the Kids to School Is the Latest Pandemic Headache

Figuring out how to get kids to and from school has always been a hassle, but with the return of in-person class and a shaky back-to-the-office situation, the usual fall headache has become more acute.

For many parents who are still working from home or attempting hybrid arrangements, meetings are starting earlier, making the morning crunch even more stressful. Now that bosses have less visibility into their employees’ blurred home/work lives, it isn’t always clear whether the day’s first Zoom meeting conflicts with school drop-offs.

This year, Megan Harper has three kids attending three different schools. She spends over an hour dropping each of them off in the mornings. Her husband picks them up in the afternoons.

Although she works for herself doing marketing and event planning, she has a client in the U.K. who sometimes needs to speak with her right in the middle of the get-to-school crunch. “Sometimes my husband has to be on morning duty and I’m on afternoon duty, depending on who has meetings when,” she said.

Having recently moved from New York to Charlotte, N.C., Ms. Harper said she didn’t look into carpooling with other families, because she doesn’t know any parents well enough yet to trust them with driving her kids.