The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools online. It impacted Latino students' learning the most

Excerpt from "The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools online. It impacted Latino students' learning the most"

ARIZONA - It was early evening and Mauris Guevara sat on her sofa describing how the COVID-19 pandemic upended the learning of her three school-age children.

On this day, the air conditioner on her roof was broken. The wall unit in the living area struggled to cool the mobile home the family of six shares in a trailer park off Van Buren Street on the west side of Phoenix.

Guevara wore jeans and a maroon T-shirt with the brand "Aéropostale" emblazoned on the front. The 45-year-old immigrant from Sinaloa, Mexico, had just come home from her job on a crew that cleans newly constructed 10,000-square-foot houses in Scottsdale that sell for millions of dollars.

Guevara's three youngest children, all U.S. citizens, sat on either side of her, their bare feet resting on the polished wood floor: Caleb, 13, Mauris, 12, and Nahive, 9. Listening in was Guevara's oldest child, 20-year-old Eyvarh, who graduated from high school two years ago.

When the pandemic hit, Caleb, Mauris and Nahive attended Southwest Elementary School, a public school in South Phoenix that serves predominantly low-income Latino students.

Caleb, Mauris and Nahive were good students, said Guevara, who earned a college degree in psychology in Mexico, and places a high value on education.

But when learning switched from an in-person classroom setting to online, the three children struggled to keep up from home on their computers via Zoom calls with their teachers six and a half hours a day.

On top of that, the family became infected with COVID-19. Guevara became so sick she thought she might die.

Her children's grades fell even more after that.

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