Remote learning and digital divide

Some school districts, many unprepared for a sudden shift of all students being taught remotely, found technology issues made them ill-prepared.

Over the summer break they beefed up technology, many using federal stimulus money allocated as a result of the pandemic, and outfitted all students with laptop computers and tablets. Some districts with poor internet access provided hot spots for families.

The digital divide in Dolton West School District 148 became a hurdle not all families could clear. The district serves areas of Dolton, Harvey, Riverdale and South Holland, and 91% of its 2,300 students are in low-income households, according to Superintendent Kevin Nohelty.

The district had sufficient laptops to outfit second through eighth graders, but with a federal grant of nearly $1.6 million they bought computers for prekindergarten, kindergarten and first grade students, along with the hot spots, he said.

“We wanted to ensure we have no boundaries when it comes to delivering robust instruction for our students,” Nohelty said.

Matteson Elementary District 162 and Southland College Prep Charter High School in Richton Park, aided by $823,000 in federal funding, poured $1 million into technology upgrades to ensure remote learning would, as much as possible, resemble the experience in the classroom.

Those schools and District 148 opted to start the 2020-2021 school year remotely.

“I’d rather devote the dollars toward delivering robust instruction under our terms rather than reallocating those dollars to try to protect everybody while this virus is still very alive and active,” Nohelty said.

South and southwest suburban school districts also deployed extensive safety measures and adopted plans that limited how many students would be in buildings at a given time.

As summer gave way to fall, however, rising virus rates within their communities forced many districts to abandon any in-person learning. Staffing became an issue as teachers, while not necessarily themselves testing positive for the virus, needed to quarantine because of close contact with someone who had, and student absences spiked for the same reason.