Jamaala Karim walks into the Paul Dunbar Learning Center cafeteria. It’s filled with staff hired to help distribute technology to students’ families.
“Having to go from single mom to teacher, it’s like, uhhhhhh,” she sighs heavily.
Karim picks up two clear backpacks. Each of them has a Chromebook and headphones for her incoming third- and fourth-graders. She also picks up a hotspot device because her family does not have internet at home.
“It was very difficult,” Karim says, thinking back to the spring semester when the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools. “I think they weren’t really ready for that. When you get on Google classroom, it wasn’t working very well and the WiFi device was acting up a little bit. I kept having to call the school and ask them to fix it, and then I had to go pick up another device.”
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