Covid-19: Virus forced US schools online, but many students didn’t follow

Sunnyside Elementary School fourth-grader Miriam Amacker does school work in her room at her family's home in San Francisco. Teachers across the country report their attempts at distance learning induced by the pandemic are failing to reach large numbers of students. — AP

SAN DIEGO: During the first week that her San Diego public school was shuttered to slow the spread of the coronavirus, not one of Elise Samaniego's students logged on to her virtual classroom.

Three weeks in, the teacher still hadn’t connected online with roughly two-thirds of the students in her third- and fourth-grade combo class at Paradise Hills Elementary. She fears the pandemic will exact a devastating toll on education in the United States, especially at low-income schools like hers.