A parent-led effort to close the digital divide
For many Spanish-speaking families, getting technology for remote learning has been tough, so a Nevada parent launched her own initiative to help
When the Clark County School District in Las Vegas announced it would be staying entirely remote this year, mother and education advocate Valeria Gurr was immediately concerned about how the decision would affect low-income and Spanish-speaking families, especially those with students who are English language learners. She worried that the district might fail to provide enough support, as it did in the disastrous transition to remote learning last spring, when one third of the district’s 314,848 students never got online because they didn’t have the technology, according to reporting from the Las Vegas Sun.
For English language learners, who make up more than 5 million students in public schools across the country, the transition to remote learning has been particularly hard.
The district has been trying to avoid a repeat of the March transition, offering low-income students thousands of devices it was able to purchase with the help of federal dollars. But, despite handing out about 10,000 devices a day in the weeks leading up to the schools’ remote reopening, the district had still failed to reach some 19,000 students who were waiting for a device as of August 24, when classes began, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Gurr, a Latina who still views herself as an English language learner, speaks to low-income families regularly in her role as the Nevada state director for the nonprofit Nevada School Choice Coalition, a project of the American Federation for Children. Although her 3-year-old son hasn’t yet entered the public schools, she’s heard from many parents how challenging the transition to virtual learning was last spring. Many had trouble coping, even though they had resources to draw on, she said. “Imagine what it is for Hispanic families that don’t speak English and … don’t have the technology.”
Curious to know how many families in her community were still struggling, Gurr turned to a social media group she had started for Spanish-speaking parents for an answer. The group, “CCSD Padres y Madres,” has grown from 200 parents to a little over 1,200 parents in just a few weeks. Gurr asked group members if they had a laptop. The response CONTINUE READING: A parent-led effort to close the digital divide for Spanish speaking families