With schools moving online again, digital divide deepens
Districts, nonprofits are helping, but many students still lack computers, web access
Oakland student Jessica Ramos spent a lot of time on her phone after the coronavirus shuttered Skyline High School in March. But she wasn’t just tweeting or texting friends.
She was reading her AP Language thesis over the phone, one line at a time, to her English teacher. Without an internet connection at home, it was the only way she could get his feedback before she sent in her final paper.
“He would just send me little quick corrections through text and that was pretty much it,” she said.
This was the reality of remote learning for Ramos and thousands more students across the Bay Area who lacked the means to continue classes online. Nonprofits and fundraisers have tried their best to help. But as the coronavirus outbreak forces schools to start the new year online again, disadvantaged students continue to struggle with access to technology. They’re more at risk than ever of getting left behind.
A startling one-quarter of California students lack adequate access to the internet, according to a 2020 report by education nonprofit Common Sense. A majority of them are Black, Latinx or Native American students.
Districts in the Bay Area have reported sobering numbers: The Oakland Public Education Fund estimates half of Oakland’s 50,000 students lack either a computer or internet access and, according to a spokeswoman for San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, 14,000 of San Jose’s 36,000 students lack access to digital resources as well.
“That’s really scaring me. … Students aren’t going to be able to do their college applications because they don’t have access to internet.” — Jessica Ramos, soon a Skyline High senior
Ramos’ story has played out across the Bay Area in thousands of homes. Seventeen-year-old Devin Keppard-Tongue moved from Richmond to her grandmother’s house in Brentwood in March so that she could live somewhere with Wi-Fi. Fifteen-yearold Da’vine Smith’s internet was too slow, especially when his sister had class at the same time, and he missed deadlines when his assignments failed to upload.
Devanny Aranda, who goes to a school for teen parents in Hayward, didn’t think she’d be able to finish school at all when remote learning began. Her parents caught the virus, and she had to care for them and her daughter while she scrambled to find a way to get online.
“At one point I was like, maybe this isn’t going to work out for me, maybe I might have to drop out,” said Aranda, who has a laptop and Wi-Fi for her senior year at Burke Academy.
Ramos, also a rising senior, only had one laptop at home, which she shared with her mom, Alma, a preschool teacher who needed the computer to attend Zoom meetings and teach her class. With her parents working several jobs to keep up with their mortgage, they weren’t able to afford Wi-Fi.
In the end, Ramos weighed impossible choices
to turn in her assignments and continue her schoolwork. When texting or using her phone’s data wasn’t enough, she went to friends’ houses to use their internet, despite her concerns about the virus.
“I didn’t think much about it,” she said. “It’s like, I’d rather get a nice education and finish my work instead of my health.”
School districts, like nonprofits,
are helping. Ramos and Aranda were both able to get laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots from their schools. The Oakland Public Education Fund partnered with the school district to raise funds for laptops and hotspots and expects to be able to provide 25,000 devices, enough for all of Oakland’s students in need, provided they can reach them.
As encouraging as the response has been, though, Oakland Public Education Fund Executive Director Alexandria Medina wonders if something could have been done sooner, before the coronavirus compounded a long-standing inequality.
“We knew that there was a gap in the digital divide for our students in Oakland,” she said. “I think there are so many needs that we weren’t able to prioritize ahead of the game.”
Even now, some students say they’re facing problems. Ramos, 17, kept her hotspot but had to return the laptop her school lent her after spring, even though she was still taking AP classes to boost her grades over the summer break. She’s back to sharing one device with her mother; they’ve worked out a schedule to swap between their phones and the laptop when someone needs to write an essay or join a call, but the hotspot isn’t fast enough when they’re online at the same time.
Ramos’ U.S. history teacher, Andrew Burt, knows that not every student will show such “aplomb and tenacity” to overcome the online obstacles.
“She is a fierce advocate for students and families in Oakland,” he said of Ramos.
She hopes she’ll get a loaner laptop for the start of senior year. She’s looking ahead to college applications and applying to her dream school, Stanford, where she wants to study education or psychology. But she’s worried that many of her classmates who are still unconnected won’t be able to join her, or even try.
“That’s really scaring me,” she said. “Most students do (college applications) at their school site. … Students aren’t going to be able to do their college applications because they don’t have access to internet.”
Medina agreed that school districts have much more to do.
“This need is ongoing,” she said. “It’s going to continue until we can get some sort of relief from the urgency of this virus.”
“We knew that there was a gap in the digital divide for our students in Oakland. I think there are so many needs that we weren’t able to prioritize ahead of the game.” — Alexandria Medina, Oakland Public Education Fund executive director