School buses crawled down Georgia Avenue. Parents parked semi-illegally on the culs-de-sac behind the elementary school. Crossing guards held up their hands to stop traffic.

March 15, the first day of school for 20,000 students in my suburb of Washington, D.C., also marked the return of obstacles to driving that had been absent for over a year. Even driving through the district, where the schools are still closed, was tougher, as the roads leading into downtown were crowded by cars with Maryland tags. Parents, now finally freed from doing half of the teachers’ jobs for them, were heading into work.