Before COVID-19, Jeanette Mathews was a single mother who relied on her son’s school schedule to help balance two jobs. In the mornings, the Mississippi transplant worked at a bustling restaurant in downtown Austin. In the afternoons, she served at a second restaurant while her son attended afterschool care and football practice. But the week her downtown job closed due to the pandemic, Austin Independent School District (AISD) schools also shut down, forcing her son into a virtual classroom.
“I just instantly panicked because I already knew, there would be no more school,” Mathews says. “And then there’s a possibility there’s no job for me.”
With the loss of her afternoon job, Mathews could no longer afford phone service—the only way she could reliably access the internet. Without service, her son struggled to attend school remotely.
