School principals in some disadvantaged areas across the United States resorted to innovative strategies to keep their students engaged with virtual learning during the height of lockdowns.
They organised to loan struggling kids laptop computers, created wi-fi hotspots, visited homes and conducted lessons in their driveways. They even placed encouraging signs of support in their front yards and formed car parades through their neighbourhoods, according to research from the University of Texas at San Antonio. For students’ families, they created food banks and located community mental health services. These efforts kept many students and families engaged in virtual lessons, rather than dropping out of school.
“When you serve marginalised kids, you have to create systems of opportunities so that no child digs themselves into a hole they can't get out of,” a secondary principal in South Texas told researchers.
