At Vista Middle School, classrooms are empty, but large spaces are full.

All of the eighth graders for instance were gathered in one room -- the multipurpose room -- for a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr.

Assistant principal Ivania Holodnik was overseeing that lesson.

“We have about 168 eight graders," she said. "Normally we’re about 375.”

On the whole, about 500 kids came to school on Tuesday. That's slightly more than on Monday, but still less than half of the 1100 students enrolled at Vista.

Among those who showed up was Emerson Ortiz, an honor student who takes his education very seriously.

“I don’t want to stay home," he explained. "I want to come to school.  Even though my teachers are not here, I have to learn.”

And he feels like he is. On his laptop, he practices science. Upstairs in the lecture hall, he says students do a lot of math. 

“Multiplying fractions, the square root of something, algebra," he lists.

Leslie Marino helps with some of that. A future special ed teacher, she’s volunteering at Vista, where her younger sister is a student. Mostly she says, she just walks around making sure everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

“I think everything is getting handled pretty well," she said."Everything is under control.”

What’s missing of course, are the teachers. And their absence is felt by everyone.

“I love my teachers," Emerson says."This is hard for them and for us, because they want a better future for themselves and for us.”

“We support the teachers," Ms. Holodnik says.

"Our teachers work very hard. We miss them. It really takes a village to raise a child. At the same time we have to continue the education and we have to continue to keep them safe.”

Having to teach hundreds of students in what’s essentially three large classrooms isn’t ideal. No one thinks it is. But until a deal is reached, it's the reality -- one that Emerson hopes he won’t have to get used to.   

“I hope it doesn’t last long," he says, "because I want my teachers back.”