‘Abbott Elementary’ returns to the ‘jungle’ of public schools in season 6
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“Abbott Elementary” season six kicks off with AI deepfakes, broken air conditioning, and a jungle classroom.
“Abbott Elementary” returned on Wednesday, Oct. 7, on ABC with the premiere of season 6, aptly titled “Jungle Classroom,” bringing the whole gang back together for another school year.
The latest episode of “Abbott Elementary” kicks off on Development Day ahead of the school year, and inspired by TikToks, Janine (Quinta Brunson), the show’s beloved, plucky second-grade teacher, is determined to transform her classroom into a jungle in time for the first day of school.
While her colleagues, Barbara (Sherly Lee Ralph) and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter), begin to worry that she’s taken on too much, her classroom quickly becomes a mess of brown and green craft supplies. There are water misters at one point and even a fire pit, neither of which is up to code, and what begins as an ambitious undertaking quickly turns into a fool’s errand she nearly abandons. However, the “jungle” isn’t confined to just her classroom.
After six seasons, the Emmy-winning sitcom continues to find humor in the increasingly absurd circumstances surrounding American public education. From artificial intelligence complicating an already difficult hiring process to teachers practically begging for basic resources, the premiere shows us what it takes to run a public school in 2026.
For starters, we have Janine and her classroom, which risks violating safety codes all in an effort to thrill and delight her students. Across TikTok, you’ll find all manner of public school teachers who have gone to great lengths and expense to bring entire worlds and experiences to life for their students, often entirely out of their own pockets. In fact, 97% of teachers responding to a 2025 survey by AdoptAClassroom.org reported that their school-provided budgets for classroom supplies were insufficient during the 2024–2025 school year.
They’re also pulling off these elaborate transformations with very limited manpower. Ava, the school’s notorious principal, played expertly by Janelle James, even warns the teachers that they must finish setting up their classrooms before the first day of school, as the district is cracking down on teachers using students to help finish the job. At one point, Janine finds herself stranded on top of a filing cabinet with no one around to help her down.
During a staff meeting with newly appointed assistant principal Gregory Eddie (Tyler James Williams) at the helm, we get a preview of how the power dynamics between him and Ava, as well as his fellow colleagues, might play out. As teachers make requests he finds reasonable, he readily agrees to look into them, only for Ava to quickly explain why things won’t be quite so simple.
Then Barbara bursts in, looking disheveled, her wig askew, and holding a cracked cellphone. After failing to divert everyone’s attention, she reveals she was just hit by a car and demands the school reinstate a crossing guard at that particular crosswalk. This turns out to be a lie. She actually walked into the car because she was distracted by her phone and wasn’t looking where she was going. But hey, they got their crossing guard out of it.
Meanwhile, Gregory and Ava are butting heads, as expected, over how to handle nearly everything, from conflicts among teachers to how best to bring some of the school’s most pressing concerns to the district.
When Melissa storms into Ava’s office, insisting she get her old classroom back from a new teacher, Ava explains she can’t concern herself with that and everything else, so she tells Melissa to handle it herself. Gregory is aghast, but he quickly drops the matter himself to focus on bigger issues at hand.
Among them is the school’s air conditioning, which has gone out, leaving the staff in need of portable units. Ava wants to corner the school district superintendent, played by Geoffrey Owens, while Gregory would rather approach him through the proper channels and simply ask for what they need.
Gregory calls the district office and tries to meet in person, while Ava offers to corner the superintendent at his father’s barbershop, and the two end up meeting somewhere in the middle. They track him down on a golf course, where Gregory does, in fact, simply ask for what they need. Much to Ava’s shock, it works.
While watching them expend so much energy makes for great television, it’s also frustrating when you consider how much energy real educators must devote to matters beyond simply educating children. Even getting a comfortable temperature in a classroom can become an exercise in navigating bureaucracy, negotiating with administrators, and hoping someone with the authority to help will actually listen.
Gregory drives that point home even further as he attempts to find his replacement. When he first arrived at Abbott Elementary in season one, he had ambitions of becoming a principal but unexpectedly fell in love with teaching. So when he was finally promoted to assistant principal at the end of season five, it was exciting for fans to watch his professional progression. However, after it’s revealed that the teacher he hired following a rigorous selection process was actually an AI-generated deepfake applicant, the episode delivers maybe its loudest commentary on 2026.
At a time when artificial intelligence is reshaping the job market, complicating hiring, and raising questions about its place in education, there’s a certain irony in the fact that technology, increasingly touted as a way to make our lives easier, has only made Gregory’s job harder. And in a profession that depends so heavily on human connection, the mishap also raises a larger question about just how much help AI can really offer educators already struggling to meet the needs of their students.
The episode ends where it began, back in Janine’s jungle classroom. After overcoming her insecurities, a recurring theme for her character, she manages to pull off the transformation after all. Yet, once school is finally in session, a student accidentally knocks over one of the trees she agonized over constructing.
She lets out a sigh and insists it’s fine, before adding, “You never know what can happen in the jungle.”
And she’s right. Navigating a jungle requires adaptability, quick thinking, resourcefulness, and the ability to expect the unexpected, which, as the season premiere of “Abbott Elementary” demonstrates, sounds an awful lot like teaching in a public school in 2026.