In July, Denver school district officials began notifying districts in the state and nationwide that many digital devices likely wouldn’t be available until well into the fall. Here’s how four districts are working to keep students learning despite the challenges and complications.ĭenver: Identifying Needs and Redistributing Resources Now the stakes are higher and we’re really behind.” ![]() “Really it was just a collective failure of will to resolve it while the stakes were lower. “It’s one of those problems that we have known was an equity issue since way before COVID,” said Elizabeth LeBlanc, co-founder and CEO of the nonprofit Institute for Teaching and Leading, and the curriculum and data coordinator for the Taos Academy Charter School in New Mexico. The NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund has described its advocacy for getting students connected as “school desegregation work.” Months of disrupted school experiences and persistent tech inequities threaten to leave students from low-income families, students of color, and rural students at a steep disadvantage. The local internet provider Cincinnati Bell has partnered with the district to offer free internet to all students, but families have to jump through several logistical hoops before they can access the service, district officials said. In Cleveland, district officials last month told school board members that many students with home internet access still can’t access learning opportunities because their download speeds can’t accommodate the heavy data load. The Augusta district in Maine is unable to hand out more than 5,000 Chromebooks sitting in storage because of a licensing glitch between the vendor and Google, the Kennebec Journal reported. ![]() Others have forged ahead, supplementing virtual instruction with paper packets and face-to-face opportunities.įor some schools, getting students connected isn’t as simple as distributing devices and hotspots. The tech shortages prompted some districts, including Pittsburgh and Greensburg Salem in Pennsylvania, to push back the first day of school from Aug. ![]() In West Virginia, for instance, schools are using grant funds to purchase hotspots because between 30 and 50 percent of the state’s students don’t have internet access at home, the Wall Street Journal reported. The country’s response to millions of students’ lack of home internet access, meanwhile, has been chaotic and patchwork, with school districts, states, private companies, and the federal government offering some relief while falling short of a comprehensive nationwide solution. Thousands of laptops are on back order due to supply chain shortages and federal government-imposed sanctions on Chinese computer manufacturers that have used child slave labor. What accounts for all these missing students? Many still lack the basic technology they need at home to access virtual school. ![]() And many of New York City’s 114,000 students living in shelters or doubling up with family and friends are experiencing difficulty logging on as they get ready for school to start next week. More than 40,000 students were missing during Houston’s first week of fully remote instruction. Schools in Flint, Mich., are tracking down hundreds of students who weren’t showing up for virtual instruction. More than 3,600 public school students in Cincinnati have been missing from virtual learning so far. Many more districts are offering hybrid instruction, a mix of in-person and online learning. school districts had chosen remote learning only as their back-to-school instructional model, affecting more than 8 million students, according to Education Week’s school reopenings database. A familiar refrain from the spring has returned: Thousands of students aren’t showing up for remote learning as a new school year begins, and schools are continuing to scramble for short- and long-term solutions.Īs of Sept.
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