About ‘3, 9, 12’
As 2020 began, The Arizona Republic decided to document three transitional years in a student’s education to understand what it was like to be a kid learning to read, navigating high school and stepping into adulthood. By February 2020, reporters had connected with three schools — Catalina Ventura School in west Phoenix, Canyon View High School in the West Valley and Marcos de Niza High School in Tempe. They sat in on in-person classes and started getting to know the students, their families, teachers, counselors and principals. Then came March, and a pandemic that shut down all three schools, throwing students off their routines and leaving schools scrambling to flip public education on its head. It shifted our reporting strategies as well. Instead of sitting in on classroom learning, we checked in with students via video updates, phone calls, text messages and socially distanced in-person visits.
Education reporter Lily Altavena began her project in a classroom of more than a dozen third graders at Catalina Ventura. As the year progressed, she routinely checked in with two — and their parents — to hear how they were faring. Altavena attended Trombly Elementary School in Michigan, where she learned to read — later than many of her classmates. By third grade, however, she was reading proficiently. She especially loved to read Sailor Moon comic books. Lily now works for the Detroit Free Press, a sister paper in the USA TODAY Network. Reporter Lorraine Longhi followed three Canyon View students as they adapted to online school, returned to in-person classes and then went back to online. She focused on how the pandemic affected their personal growth during a pivotal academic year. Longhi covered Scottsdale for The Republic until November 2020. Longhi attended ninth grade at Shepherd Junior High in Mesa. It was her last year before the agony of braces.
Reporter Rachel Leingang saw how the pandemic upended the end of high school and the beginning of what comes next and got a glimpse at the barriers that prevent high school graduates from enrolling in college. Leingang covered higher education for The Republic, with interludes covering politics and COVID-19, until early 2021. She now is a solutions reporter for the paper. She graduated from high school in Mandan, North Dakota, and enrolled the next fall at Minnesota State University Moorhead. She was the first member of her immediate family to earn a bachelor’s degree.