Connecticut Was the First State in the Nation to Provide Every Student in Need with a Remote Learning Device. It Wasn’t Enough.

Connecticut Was the First State in the Nation to Provide Every Student in Need with a Remote Learning Device. It Wasn’t Enough.

April 29, 2021

Kristen Record, a science teacher at Bunnell High School in Stratford, Conn., looks forward to the day she can use regular lab equipment again. Teaching AP Physics through a computer is hard, even for Connecticut’s 2011 Teacher of the Year.

Record’s taught pupils over Zoom for most of this school year, but some students never appeared on her screen. Even after students had the choice to remain remote or return to the classroom, she estimates about 10 percent didn’t show. Emails to their homes went unanswered, or listed family phone numbers were no longer in service. It was like pushing information into a black hole.