Left Behind: Inequalities of Distance Learning

By The Editorial Board

On March 18, 2020, the San Francisco Unified School Board made a choice that seemed to have no other alternative. They sent students home for two weeks, giving them time to get everything under control. Two weeks passed, and the crisis at hand seemed to be larger than anyone had expected. 

Shortly thereafter, it was announced that students would stay home for the rest of the school year. “Distance learning” was a term thrown around lightly, as a short-term, temporary fix, until they could regain their footing and send students back to school. There were problems with it, but when weighing their options, the school board didn’t really have anywhere to turn. 

There were issues from the start: stress levels went up, and learning was unpredictable. 

While some of us may find it convenient to roll out of bed and be six feet away from our classroom, the experience of some of our fellow peers tells a much different story. 

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Fast forward a whole year later, to a time where we would have thought that these kinks to be worked out, to a time where school, even if online, was a little more manageable. But after a long and for the most part uneventful summer, we returned to a classroom that illuminated the inequalities in public school like never before. A junior at Balboa showed me a very basic example of this. Take clubs (including this one!) being moved online for example. Awesome idea right? Makes distance-learning more engaging, being able to partake in clubs such as the ‘Red Cross Club’, and even a book club run by a Balboa Librarian. She told me of her wish to sign up for as many clubs as possible. But she can’t. That time that others can leisurely spend talking about humanitarian aid and creative writing, she has to spend cleaning office buildings, cooking, and taking care of her siblings to help her parents while they’re at work. 

Her case isn’t a unique one. Multiple Balboa students expressed feelings of extreme stress due to conflicting issues, school v. family being a major component. A sophomore said that he had a significantly less amount of time to complete his assignments, not because of procrastination, but because on the weekends he spends his days working with his stepdad, a janitor. 

At Balboa, we have a set of “core values”, rules that we uphold as a community to keep Balboa safe and supportive:

F – Fair

R – Respectful

E – Excellent 

S – Safe

H – Hopeful

One of the values that stick out is “Fair”. When a group of students is allowed the tools to grow and flourish that others are denied because of their class or background, that is something that needs to be addressed. We are living in a city that prides itself on its equality, and distance learning showed where that promise of equality runs short.