It was the second week of the fall semester when Cassandra Wooten realized her teenage daughter was sinking. The high school junior often spent hours a day on her computer for online school, only to tell her mom at day’s end that she wasn’t sure she’d learned anything at all.
Wooten had decided to enroll her daughter in the remote learning plan at Mississippi's DeSoto County School District last summer, when infection rates were surging and hospitals ran out of ICU beds. Wooten was determined to keep her only child safe and felt confident that a computer, quiet space in their home and a good attitude would keep her on track with her peers who were learning in person.
But as it became apparent that her daughter’s experience would consist largely of watching pre-recorded videos from her teachers and pacing through classwork by herself, Wooten lost her optimism. A strong student before the pandemic, her daughter's grade in Algebra II slipped to a D. Before the first month of classes ended, Wooten hired a tutor to assist her daughter with the class.
“It’s absolutely pointless to have a program called virtual learning, but there is no opportunity for any virtual learning,” said Wooten, who works as an analyst tracking the arrival of medical supplies needed to combat the pandemic.
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