The response shocked her.

The staff member in the room at Bear Creek Middle School in Fulton County, Georgia, was a substitute, there to monitor behavior and ensure students completed their work. His actual teacher was hundreds of miles away, delivering instruction virtually for an Austin, Texas-based company called Proximity Learning. 

“We didn’t know our kids had virtual teachers,” Wright said. “Parents need to be aware that that is the type of learning [students] are getting.”

Live, online instruction in school has long linked students to subjects they couldn’t otherwise take, like A.P. Calculus or Latin. But as districts struggle to fill teaching vacancies, they are increasingly turning to companies like Proximity to teach core subjects. Districts are spending thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars on virtual teachers, according to ����Ӱ��’s review of purchase orders in , a data service. The practice — derided at the height of the pandemic as “Zoom-in-a-room”— is raising eyebrows as students return to school and continue to grapple with the lingering .

“This is happening all over,” said Jennifer Carolan, co-founder and partner at Reach Capital, a firm that invests in education companies. She estimated that roughly a dozen companies offering virtual teaching have reached “meaningful scale.”

But she balked at investing herself after a member of her team visited a high school English class at a school near San Jose, California, taught virtually by a teacher from , another provider. “Ultimately, I could not stomach funding this because I would never send my kid to a school where they’re in ,” she said. “It doesn’t align with how I see education evolving.”

Given shortages, however, district leaders insist a virtual teacher is better than none at all.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got to find a way to get instruction in front of those children,” said Andy Pruitt, spokesman for the Charleston County schools in South Carolina.

Charleston paid over $450,000 for Proximity teachers in math, language arts and social studies for 22 classes across seven schools last year — and sent an email to parents informing them of the practice prior to the start of school, Pruit said. But the district, which is using federal relief funds to give each of its almost 3,600 teachers this year, doesn’t expect to need Proximity again this fall. 

The picture looks different in Colleton County, about an hour to the west. The 4,900-student district will once again fill positions with teachers from New York-based . Last year, students had virtual teachers for in algebra, biology, English and history. 

The practice sparked some disarray, including students wandering out of class during lessons. led the school board earlier this year to approve $18,000 for high-tech cameras that allow virtual teachers to see the entire classroom. 

During a June board meeting, Wilsey Hamilton, the district’s human resources director, that with more than 60 open positions, her team is trying to lure back retired teachers and is advertising job openings on social media and digital billboards. But she couldn’t rule out using Fullmind for another year.

“We don’t see any other option but to continue that partnership to help fill some of our vacancies,” she said. 

No shame

More than 40% of the nation’s schools reported teacher vacancies last year, according to the most recent data from the , with the worst shortages at high-poverty and high-minority schools. Heading into the new school year, many large districts, including and , are scrambling to fill positions. 

Like Charleston, at least 13 other South Carolina districts have used Proximity over the past two school years to fill gaps. 

Representatives from Education Solution Services, which owns Proximity, did not return calls or emails seeking comment on this article. 

Catherine Schumacher, executive director of Public Education Partners, a Greenville-based nonprofit, said keeping pace with in the state is likely one reason for the vacancies. Negative sentiment toward teachers could be another.

“It is really important that we do not shame districts for doing the absolute best they can to get qualified teachers,” she said. “We have systematically underpaid … educators for years, and we have been tolerating a climate that is demonizing teachers and public schools.”

GovSpend reflects the mushrooming demand for virtual teachers. Yearly spending by districts on Proximity, for example, increased from $6.3 million in 2020 to over $21 million last year. And while Reach Capital didn’t fund Coursemojo, , another education sector investor, did. A third venture firm, General Catalyst, is betting on Chicago-based Elevate K-12, contributing last year to in the company. 

“It seems to be developing into a behind-the-scenes boom industry,” said Kerry Chisnall, principal of Hawley Middle School in Creedmoor, North Carolina, which used four Elevate K-12 teachers last year. Located on the fringes of the Research Triangle, Chisnall said his district can’t pay teachers as much as larger districts, like nearby Durham. Elevate K-12, he said, is “a godsend, absolutely.”

Over 100 districts or charter networks, including at least 40 in Texas alone, have paid Proximity a total of more than $31 million for virtual teachers since the fall of 2021, GovSpend shows. They include the , which spent $546,000 for science and math courses, and the Jefferson Parish school system in Louisiana, which has spent $570,000 and recently signed a with the company for $861,000, to be financed with federal relief funds. 

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools in Tennessee is one of Proximity’s best customers — spending $6.63 million since January 2022. 

When the district first contracted with Proximity in 2019, Keith Williams, head of the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, dismissed it as a and “another fly-by-night program.” But now on the school board, he voted in June with the rest of the board in favor of a for 600 “live sessions.”

Williams didn’t return calls or emails seeking comment, and the district declined to respond to questions about Proximity.

Before school started last week, Interim Superintendent Toni Williams told that the company is one way the district is addressing vacancies.

But virtual teaching outposts also struggle with shortages, and a contract for remote instruction doesn’t guarantee a teacher will be there when students come back to class. “Proximity has challenges recruiting teachers just like brick-and-mortar schools,” said Rachael Spriggs, a former teacher in the district who ran unsuccessfully for school board last year. The model, she said, is also “extremely expensive because you are funding two positions per Proximity class.”

Danette Stokes, president of the United Education Association of Shelby County, another union in the district, said with classes taught by substitutes and virtual teachers throughout the year, it’s often unclear who is accountable for student performance.

“The children don’t care; they’re in and out,” she said. And she echoed concerns about transparency. “The principal is not going to introduce the Proximity teacher at a parent-teacher conference.” 

‘This problem isn’t going away’

While researchers are still examining the impact of pandemic-era on students, there’s ample evidence that it set achievement back decades. Unreliable internet access, financial distress, disengagement from school and the health effects of COVID all limited students’ ability to learn while schools were closed. 

But done well, virtual teaching has the potential to accommodate educators’ increasing demands for and offer a better way to handle vacancies, said Shaily Baranwal, who founded Elevate K-12. “Schools were just putting kids in front of software or doing anything they could as a Band-Aid,” she said. “Our pitch to school districts is that this problem isn’t going away. It can’t be about filling a shortage; it has to be real teaching.”

Over 260 districts across 33 states now use the program. The students don’t wear headphones, allowing them to interact more easily, and Baranwal expects districts to commit to an Elevate K-12 teacher for a full school year to provide consistency. 

But for Wright’s son in Fulton County, the in-school, virtual learning experience was frustrating. When a substitute wasn’t available, the school dispatched Proximity students to empty desks in other classrooms. From January to March, he took his remote math lessons in a regular social studies class, trying to block out distractions and listen to the Proximity teacher through headphones. The math teacher would sometimes mute the students’ microphones and only let them communicate through the chat function, Wright said.

Wright, herself a fourth grade teacher in another Atlanta-area district and head of a organization, isn’t opposed to virtual instruction. In fact, she considered applying for a Proximity job because she enjoyed teaching remotely during the pandemic.

“I understand what it takes to have engaging instruction,” she said. “When the child disappeared [from the screen], I was able to immediately text that parent.”

Brian Noyes, a spokesman for Fulton schools, said the district tries to keep disruption to a minimum, but splitting up Proximity students is sometimes unavoidable when a substitute can’t be found. While the district is now “99% staffed,” he said, some students will still get Proximity teachers this fall.

Wright hopes her son isn’t one of them.

“The environment wasn’t conducive to learning,” she said. “Coming out of the pandemic, it doesn’t support them being able to function in the classroom.”

Now, some teachers are seeing career opportunities there, too. 

This week ����Ӱ�� partnered with VELA Education Fund to present a special livestream: “Into the Unknown: Why Teachers Leave the Classroom to Launch Nontraditional Education Programs,” featuring several educators who made that leap. 

Education reporter Linda Jacobson moderated the conversation, which you can watch below. The panelists included Iman Alleyne, Ian Bravo and Heather Long, who all recently left traditional school settings to launch their own nontraditional education program. Mike McShane, Director of National Research at , shared trends and insights from a national point of view.

Here’s some recent coverage from our archive about microschools and learning pods: 

—Career Pivot: Teachers leaving jobs during pandemic find ‘fertile’ ground in new school models (Read the full story) 

—New Type of Hybrid School: Great Hearts sees the potential in pairing online teaching with in-person pods (Read the full story) 

—Personalized Learning: As COVID closed Arizona’s classrooms, Black mothers launched their own microschools (Read the full story) 

—Learning Pods: In year two, pandemic pods ‘find their legs’ and face their limitations. Will they endure beyond COVID-19? (Read the full story) 

Throughout nearly two years of the pandemic, young people at every turn have found creative ways to connect with their friends and potential love interests. Despite what at many times has been a largely virtual world, teens often came out on the other side of lockdown with relationships that were stronger for the experience. 

Or as one New York City high schooler put it: “If you’ve been through a pandemic with someone, I feel like we’re bonded for life.”

From long-harbored crushes to new friends over Zoom, breakups to hookups, and Bumble DMs to online multiplayer games, young people shared with ����Ӱ�� their experiences of pandemic friendship and romance, brought to you in the form of seven mini-love stories.

ILA KUMAR

It was the Frida Kahlo poster in the background of her Snapchats that first caught his attention. Ila Kumar was about to be a senior in high school and, stuck inside her family’s home in upstate New York as the early stages of the pandemic raged, she had begun chatting with … a boy. And not just any boy, but a longtime crush.

Over Snapchat, the two quickly discovered that they had each taken AP Art History and planned to major in the subject in college. “That was the beginning of our conversation,” said Kumar. “And then it just kind of went from there.”

Pretty soon, she was begging her mother, who was the more COVID-strict parent in the household, to let her meet up with this new romantic interest. The boy, for his part, offered to sanitize the car before Kumar entered and drive with the windows down. 

The campaign eventually succeeded and in June 2020 they met for coffee on the nearby campus of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie. That date ended in a kiss, which both shocked and pleased her. The pair kept seeing each other, taking COVID tests beforehand if either was worried about a potential exposure. After each date, Kumar had a friend who would come to her house and sit six feet apart on her back porch to debrief. 

“After such a terrible year, this, like, little 13-year-old dream I had totally came true,” said Kumar.

Now, the couple is embarking on what Kumar calls an “experiment in attachment.” She’s at Vassar, living in a dorm next to the cafe where they first met. He studies at the University of Michigan. The processes of navigating long-distance and virus safety together have made them better communicators, Kumar believes. And amid the continued uncertainty of pandemic travel, the pair has developed a deeper gratitude for the time they get to share together.

“There’s something kind of magical about being able to overcome a lot of stuff and getting to see the person who you love so much,” she said.

DORA CHAN

When the pandemic made in-person hangouts impossible for Dora Chan and her friends at Brooklyn Technical High School, they turned to online games. Their favorite was a multiplayer egg-based shooter game called Shell Shockers.

“It’s often really silly, because we’re like, ‘Oh my god, there’s an egg around the corner. Watch out,’” said Chan.

They would form huge Zoom calls to play, and not only would her immediate friends join, but also friends of friends whom she didn’t know well. She quickly developed her own independent relationships. One previously unknown peer asked her to play online games nearly every single day, said Chan.

Alongside the pandemic’s grim backdrop, the high schoolers would frequently jump between lighter topics to more heavy ones, cementing their new connections.

“Sometimes people will be vulnerable with each other, even if you’re strangers and be like, ‘Yeah, my grandma is in the hospital right now and I’m worried.’ And then you have someone else say, ‘Oh my god, me too,’” said Chan. 

“It’s, like, so sad but also heartwarming that we can come together in times like that.”

As national attention turned to racial injustice after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, race and policing would also come up in their conversations, said the high schooler. It would never be the original intent of the call, but the topic would arise naturally, maybe after they got bored with the game.

“It was at those moments that we felt the most connected,” said Chan. “We understood that, despite everything that was happening, we all were going through it together.”

Now, she meets up in the city to spend time with those she grew close to during quarantine. They get food, go shopping and hang out, but Chan remains careful about COVID because her grandparents live with her family. The relationships that she made over the last two years, she believes, are even stronger than those she had before. 

“It has made those friendships open to, like, all topics on earth. We can just talk about anything and everything,” said the Brooklyn Tech senior. “That’s why I think those friendships have lasted.”

JACE WILDER

Jace Wilder and his now-partner first matched on Tinder during early quarantine, but before they could connect, Wilder deleted the app. When the pair again matched on Bumble, Wilder knew he had to reach out.

“You had me at nonprofit,” he messaged, responding to a mention on the potential love interest’s profile that he had founded a charitable organization.

It kicked off a months-long texting conversation. When COVID numbers eventually began to subside in September 2020, they decided to meet up for a socially distanced dinner. The two, who are both transgender men living in Tennessee, bonded quickly.

“It was just one of those times where we immediately were connected by the fact that we were both trans, we were both connected by the fact that, you know, he went to Belmont (the Nashville university Wilder attends) … and had switched schools,” he explained. 

Their conversation stretched on, covering “everything under the sun,” recalls Wilder. In that moment, he forgot the fear and uncertainty of the pandemic world in which they were living. “It felt normal,” he said. “Things felt normal for a second.”

As they continued to date, at first casually, and then as an official couple by spring 2021, the pair simultaneously navigated COVID surges and the fact that they lived an hour drive apart. It meant that, at times, they relied on video calls for their hangouts. But Wilder was pleasantly surprised to find that the remote dates didn’t bother him.

“It feels like I’m just right there with him because the conversation builds that bridge between that virtual gap. … Whenever I’m just having a conversation with him, it doesn’t feel like it’s there at all,” he said.

As the relationship progressed, Wilder found more and more to love about his partner. He is a great storyteller, he learned, and makes beautiful art on the side. The two share a mutual admiration for each other’s opposite academic pursuits: Wilder studies political science and public health, while his partner is pursuing psychology and genetics.

“We both kind of feel like we can take over the world together,” he said. “It’s never like, ‘Everything is bad, being trans in the South is bad.’ It’s like, ‘It’s good in this moment, even if it’s just right now in this moment, it’s good.’”

IRA HABIBA

Stuck inside and feeling lonely at the beginning of lockdown, Ira Habiba was scrolling TikTok when she came across a pen pal site called . Wanting to meet new people, she signed up.

“I would just, like, close my eyes and pick a random country, and then I’d pick a random person to talk to,” said the West Quincy, Massachusetts high schooler.

Pretty soon, she was chatting with people from Korea, France and Finland. They added each other on Instagram, and messaged back and forth with conversations that stretched over days and weeks. Her French pen pal would send voice messages in English, and Habiba would respond in “broken French,” she said. Her pen pal described living on a farm in the French countryside, where she would tend to horses and cows.

“For her, you know, living in the countryside, having a farm, those things are simple for her. But to me, it’s like a completely different experience,” Habiba reflected.

Not only did she learn about worlds beyond her Massachusetts suburb, but as the conversations went on, she began to feel comfortable sharing about more vulnerable experiences like her anxiety attacks or moments of emotional distress.

“You tend to trust strangers a bit more because you know that they won’t judge you,” explained Habiba. “And they would listen.”

SAMANTHA FARROW

Samantha Farrow hadn’t yet completed her freshman year at Stuyvesant High School in Brooklyn, New York when the pandemic shut down in-person classes. Going into sophomore year with only nascent friendships was “a little bit scary and a little bit lonely,” she recalled.

But Farrow and some peers took to Zoom for hangouts. Her friends brought their friends. And soon she felt that her social network had become more full. The group played charades and watched Korean dramas. Other times, they’d log in and each do their own thing.

“Everyone was doing whatever they wanted to do, but we were just there together and it kind of brought this feeling of solace,” said Farrow.

Practically no one she knew was dating during remote learning, she said, and the short flings she heard about mostly fizzled out in a matter of weeks because it was difficult to meet up in person.

“You don’t need anyone, girl. You’re strong by yourself,” her friends would tell each other. “You can depend on us.”

Now, as school has reopened, Farrow admits that the return to normal socializing hasn’t always been smooth. 

“I definitely don’t look the same so I don’t know if some people will remember me,” she said. “There’s people who I talked to before the pandemic, and I didn’t talk to them during the pandemic. And I don’t know if I should say hi to them or not. So there’s a lot of, like, awkwardness.”

But with her core group of friends, her relationships are rock solid, she says. They’re trying to make up for lost time by going over to each other’s houses whenever possible — in small groups to stay COVID safe.

“We just want to take in as much of each other as we can,” said Farrow. “We’re really close now because, like, if you’ve been through a pandemic with someone, I feel like we’re bonded for life.”

ROHITH RAMAN 

It wasn’t until prom 2021 that Rohith Raman saw most of his classmates in person during his senior year. He had stayed online as a precaution for the safety of his grandmother, who lives with his family in their Houston home. Other than games of Call of Duty Warzone and FaceTimes here and there, it had been tough to stay in touch with peers who were outside his inner circle.

But he and his friends had long looked forward to bigger social hangouts.

“We had kind of talked about having a lot of gatherings or hosting stuff. And just having fun with a lot of people,” said Raman. “Prom was the catalyst for that kind of thing.”

By late spring, he had received both vaccine doses and COVID rates were falling. So he and his friends organized a small pre-prom get-together. At the event, he found himself gravitating to one person in particular. It was a new feeling, because during remote learning, the high schooler hadn’t developed many crushes — it had felt pointless knowing they would never be able to meet up, he said. 

But the two kept talking throughout prom and, afterwards, Raman asked her whether she wanted to spend time one-on-one. Despite the awkwardness of re-learning how to socialize in person after so long in quarantine, spending time together over the course of the summer “was kind of easy,” said Raman. “I kind of knew, at least, what I was feeling.”

Fast-forward eight months, and the pair have parted ways, but the now-college freshman remains grateful for having had the chance to return a small bit of normalcy to his senior year. Now at Tufts University in Boston, waves of increased COVID-19 transmission have forced the school to periodically clamp down on socializing. It has meant that students looking for love often have had to pivot their search online. 

Five or 10 of his friends downloaded the Tinder app in the last week alone, Raman said. He hasn’t yet, but it probably won’t be long, he laughed.

“You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.”

ESMÉE SILVERMAN

Esmée Silverman was in a relationship when COVID-19 struck, and “by all accounts we were a happy couple,” she said.

But as someone who felt most at ease with others when she could be physically close, social distancing seemed alien. Her relationship with her girlfriend eventually began to feel more taxing than fulfilling.

“Online communication is exhausting, and having to rely on that exclusively made everything feel more muddled,” Silverman recalled.

The pair split up. It was a difficult time for many queer youth, said Silverman, who is transgender. Some weren’t out to their parents and/or relied on spaces outside their family’s household in order to be their most authentic selves. But in lockdown, that was all taken away.

“I had heavily relied on physical spaces and physical gatherings to meet other queer youth, especially through my school’s ” said the Easton, Massachusetts teen. “That was gone within the blink of an eye.”

But the young person found ways to cope. She met with other queer youth virtually, and eventually, when she was ready to consider romance again, began casually dating some people she met online. She noticed that on many dating app profiles, people shared political views like “BLM” or “Stop Asian Hate,” which, to her, seemed like a shift. 

“Beforehand, the common consensus was politics were best kept quiet until a few dates in,” she said. “Today, they are fueling matches in a way that common interests do. Queer people are tired of having to break down complex political and social nuances to confused potential dates, and now prefer to be more straightforward.”

Reflecting on the last two years, Silverman can trace her inner growth.

“The experience of being locked down and the move to a virtual environment definitely hit a reset button in me, it allowed me to figure out what I individually needed in relationships,” she said. “I was alone and able to focus on myself and my needs.”

Although navigating school during a global pandemic presented new challenges for almost all K-12 staff nationwide, some educators, like Jeffrey Wright of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, faced an additional difficulty that many others did not.

As the only Black male educator at Blackstone Valley Prep, where two-thirds of the student body is Black, Hispanic or Asian American, students and parents often would come to Wright with school-related questions and concerns — seeing him, perhaps, as an easier point of access than other teachers or the administration.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter

“They look at me and they feel I’m someone they can identify with,” said Wright, whose job, officially titled “scholar support specialist,” is a cross between a dean of students and a dean of culture at his charter school, he said.

Wright relishes his connections with students. Helping youth thrive was the reason he chose to work in education. But being a go-to contact is also an “extra burden,” he said. Wright has frequently dealt with imposter syndrome, asking himself, “Am I doing this the right way?”

“That’s a lot for one person to carry,” he told ����Ӱ��.

That’s why, throughout the last school year, Wright looked forward to one evening a month when the experiences he usually shouldered on his own would be shared.

In monthly sessions, called EduLeaders of Color meetups, Wright would tune into a Zoom call full of teachers who understand the burden of being one of the few or only educators of their racial identity at their school. Hosted by a Providence-based nonprofit called the Equity Institute, which receives funding from the Rhode Island Foundation and the New Schools Venture Fund, the meetings welcome anyone in the education space to tune in — regardless of race — but are designed particularly to help Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and Asian-American educators connect with one another in a state where .

“They created a space for people like myself,” said Wright.

Research underscores the academic and social benefits that teachers of color deliver for all students, but . Many experts point to teacher diversification as a , yet nationwide, 79 percent of educators remain white compared to only 47 percent of students.

Rates of turnover are also , perhaps in part because many, like Wright, carry additional responsibilities or feel isolated in schools with majority-white staff. To help retain Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and Asian-American educators, gatherings like the EduLeaders of Color meetups may prove a promising strategy.

“Programs like EduLeaders give teachers tools to navigate some of the challenging experiences that they have in their schools with their principals, with their colleagues,” said Travis Bristol, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education who was familiar with the Rhode Island sessions. The gatherings may not change the systemic conditions that can push teachers of color to leave the profession, he said, but “it gives them tools to cope. It gives them tools to stay day to day.”

Similar programs exist elsewhere, the Berkeley professor told ����Ӱ��, including in , and . The EduLeaders of Color programming differs from many others by focusing on growing participants’ professional networks and encouraging their leadership potential, according to its co-founders Karla Vigil and Carlon Howard.

When COVID-19 struck, it meant the EduLeaders meetups, which began in 2016, had to go virtual, forcing Equity Institute co-founders Karla Vigil and Carlon Howard to re-think the structure. Even online, 60 or more individuals, who work at traditional public schools, charter schools like Blackstone Valley Prep and or in higher education, regularly join the calls.

“Online it’s been a little different. We’ve had to change the format,” Vigil told ����Ӱ��. “We’re very particular about creating an environment that feels welcoming, that feels healing, that feels diverse in all ways.”

Immediately upon clicking into EduLeaders of Color events, it’s clear the meetings are a far cry from the stuffy Zoom calls filled with awkward silences and empty black rectangles that participants may be familiar with from professional settings.

Music plays in the background as people log in — usually hip hop, rhythm and blues or reggaeton. Participants each receive $20 Grubhub gift cards for their free registration, so they can enjoy takeout from their favorite restaurant alongside the conversation. Most of those who join keep their cameras on and some even pull up customized backgrounds for the event. The facilitators announce that there will be a prize awarded at the end to the participant who’s been the most lively in the chat box, and throughout the session, the messages continue to scroll steadily.

Vigil and Howard have read extensively about , which pervades many professional settings, its theorists posit, through an emphasis on time scarcity, valuation of the written word over the spoken word, and other structures — and they intentionally design their gatherings to counter those norms.

“It’s not that rigidity that you think of when you [think of school], like you have to dress a certain way, you have to look a certain way,” said Wright. “In this meetup … it’s a party. We come together. We come here, we can chill, we can laugh. It’s OK if you have a thought — you can blurt that thought out. To me, that’s exactly what a learning environment should be.”

The social side of the gathering can also double as a networking opportunity, said Wright. He himself landed a role as a board member for the Community College of Rhode Island, his alma mater, through a connection from the meetup’s organizers. The pandemic has made the natural interactions more difficult, said Vigil, but after each session, she and Howard still try to connect individuals via email who they think would benefit from being introduced to each other.

Each monthly session, advertised through social media and word of mouth, features a different theme: In February, the , in March, and in April, . The organizers carefully select panelists who will uplift the identities of those joining the call.

That means “making sure that the folks who are talking, taking up airspace, who are the main speakers all come from the backgrounds of many of our young people, and particularly our young people of color,” Howard told ����Ӱ��.

During the gatherings, while panelists or other participants speak about their experiences working in schools, Wright often thinks to himself, “Man, I went through that. I know what that’s like. Yes. I’m not alone,” he said.

That’s precisely the point, said Vigil.

“[Participants] feel like they’ve come to share common ground with somebody so they don’t feel like they’re in a silo — because many do feel like they’re in a silo in schools.”

She understands Wright’s burden as one of the only Black teachers in his school. (Another Black man is joining the ranks at Blackstone Valley Prep this year, Wright noted.) The isolation of having been one of the only teachers of color in her Providence school, Vigil explained, in 2016.

During his teaching days, Howard said he was repeatedly called upon by other educators to deal with misbehaving children, many of whom were Black. For his white colleagues struggling to get through to young people of color, “I was their connecting piece,” he recalled. Not only was the extra responsibility tiring, but because he was mostly tapped to discipline students acting out in a system he understood to be fundamentally slated against them, Howard began to feel like an Uncle Tom, he said. “I didn’t want to be in that type of position.”

“The tax that we carry is large. It’s heavy. It’s felt,” added Vigil.

With widespread access to vaccines, the Equity Institute is now gearing up for its first in-person meetup since the pandemic struck. The Sept. 23 session will be held in Providence with in-person attendance capped at 40 and dependent on proof of vaccination, said Howard. It will also don a new name: Converge — a representation of the group’s purpose as a space to gather.

But regardless of the rebranding, regardless of whether the meetups continue in person or return online as the Delta variant causes COVID-19 cases to surge, Wright is confident that the demand will persist.

“I think that there are a lot of educators who can really benefit from this,” he said.

When Clint Myrick graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2010, he left with two consequential pieces of paper: a diploma for a bachelor’s degree in music education — and an eye-popping student loan bill.

The Milwaukee native was one of the first in his family to attend college, and Myrick said he entered with little knowledge of how to pay for it.

“I was totally unprepared,” Myrick said. “I didn’t know how much it cost … I kind of had to figure out everything on my own.”

Myrick held a number of jobs during college to help pay the bills, from working at a flower shop to running a cash register at the UW-Milwaukee student union. He earned about $6 an hour, and student loans allowed him to pay for school.

Over a decade later, Myrick’s student loan debt has only ballooned, even after years of payments. In 2015 he consolidated $118,473 worth of loans, but interest has pushed the debt to $152,039, the highest it has ever been. The husband and father of three works multiple jobs to service the debt. He spends an extra 20 to 30 hours a week as an Uber driver outside of his full-time job for a bank and duties as president for the Milwaukee chapter of the Black fraternity he belonged to in college, Alpha Phi Alpha.

Myrick is not alone in this struggle. In Wisconsin, about , with the median debt at $17,323, according to Gov. Tony Evers’ 2020 task force on student loan debt. Nationally, the toll of crippling levels of student debt on tens of millions of Americans has prompted some calls for wide-ranging loan forgiveness.

That burden weighs on students unevenly. According to , Black and African-American college graduates owe around $25,000 more in student loan debt on average than their white counterparts. The same report also found that four years after graduation, 48% of Black students owe around 12.5% more than they originally borrowed.

Such disparities are particularly stark in the Milwaukee area, according to a In majority-minority ZIP codes in Milwaukee, Waukesha and West Allis, 23% of the population has student loan debt, compared to 19% of majority white ZIP codes. The real difference comes in the proportion of those loans that are in default. In ZIP codes where most residents are people of color, 21% of the loans are in default, compared to just 6% in majority-white areas.

Evers’ task force recommended Wisconsin take several steps to ease the student debt burden, including expanding financial literacy education for K-12 students; increasing need-based financial aid; loan forgiveness for graduates entering certain professions; state tax credits; and a mechanism to refinance student debt to lower interest rates.

It concluded that “finding solutions to tackle racial and ethnic inequity in student debt is a critical aspect of finding solutions for Wisconsin’s student loan borrowers.”

Disparities deep in Milwaukee

A variety of studies have named Milwaukee the nation’s , home to structural inequality that makes it tougher for Black residents to bolster their standard of living compared to white residents. A 2020 compared Milwaukee’s Black community to those in the country’s 50 largest metropolitan cities. The report found that Milwaukee’s Black residents fared among the worst nationally regarding income and economic mobility, with many enduring “caste-like conditions” forged by a range of discriminatory policies and practices in government and the private sector.

The study identified a vast gulf between Black and white young people in income and future earning potential, finding that Milwaukee over four decades trailed all but three major metro areas in upward mobility for Black youth. During that same time, Milwaukee saw the 18th best upward mobility for white youths.

Myrick said these statistics show how racism inhibits the overall well-being of Black folks.

“The base of it is racism. Racism is the driving force in the disparities between Black and white people,” Myrick said. “We’re not receiving the same education, the same resources or the same facilities.”

During a March on student loan forgiveness, Ashley Harrington of the Center for Responsible Lending said many Black students are severely burdened by this loan debt. The nonprofit works to protect homeownership and family wealth by opposing abusive financial practices.

“(Student debt) is disproportionately weighing on borrowers of color, Black borrowers in particular, who are more likely to borrow, to borrow more and to struggle in repayment,” said Harrington, federal advocacy director for the group. “That is the direct result of centuries of racially exclusionary policies and practices that continue to this day.”

At Myrick’s alma mater, UW-Milwaukee, many students are racking up crippling debt to lenders.

The of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) found the percentage of UW-Milwaukee students taking out student loans in the 2018-19 school year was 7 percentage points higher than the median of a comparison group of similar institutions. Additionally, UW-Milwaukee students in the same year took out an average of $7,499 a year in student loans — roughly $1,000 more than the median amount.

Myrick said he understands why so many students take out loans without necessarily knowing how to pay them back.

“They sell you on the dream. ‘Just take out the loans, and you’ll get a job where you’ll be able to pay that stuff back!’ You really believe it,” Myrick said.

More debt, more defaults

Loan debt at UW-Milwaukee disproportionately affects Black students in other ways too.

Nationwide, 45.9% of Black students graduate with a bachelor’s degree within six years, according to . But at UW-Milwaukee, only 25% of Black and African-American students at UW-Milwaukee achieve this, according to the . That is roughly half of the graduation rate for white UW-Milwaukee students and the lowest among all racial and ethnic groups at the university.

That disparity stems at least in part from students having to drop out of school for financial reasons, said Victoria Pryor, UW-Milwaukee’s Black Student Cultural Center student services program manager. Pryor said many Black students face a troubling dilemma: Take out more student loans or leave school.

“I’ve seen several students who have had to drop out because they might not have had that last little bit of money for tuition or they might have fallen on hard times,” Pryor said. “They may get their degree but still have $40,000 to $50,000 in student loans to repay. That’s the worst thing — to have that much money to pay back, and you still don’t have that degree.”

Black students are taking particularly big financial risks when attending higher education, UW-Madison’s Fenaba Addo said in a for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

“(Black students) tend to rely on student loans more than whites, have higher debt burdens, express more concern about the affordability of loan payments, and are more likely to default,” said Addo, a faculty affiliate at the university’s Institute for Research on Poverty.

Financial aid scarce

To avoid the possibility of piling on more loan debt, many UW-Milwaukee students turn to the university’s financial aid office.

However, the university lags behind similar institutions in regard to financial aid. The same 2020 IPEDS found 58% of UW-Milwaukee students received grant aid in the 2018-19 school year — far below the comparison group median of 84%. UW-Milwaukee that year offered students roughly half the aid that comparison universities provided.

Increasing financial aid could combat loan disparities, but Tim Opgenorth, UW-Milwaukee’s director of financial aid, said the university lacks funding to cover the need.

“(The IPEDS data) doesn’t surprise me. We have a very small amount of institutional, need-based aid that we can give to students,” Opgenorth said. “The campus is aware that they have a ways to go, and they’ve been trying to raise money to address it.”

Pryor and the multicultural student success coordinators at UW-Milwaukee’s aim to address this gap through academic, career and personal resources and helping Black students search for financial aid.

“The one thing I always preach to them is that I want them to leave here with as little debt as possible,” Pryor said.

Pryor, a 1988 UW-Milwaukee alum, said working a job to help cover college costs was less  common when she was in school as it is today.

“I look at these students today. They come in with so many challenges and obstacles,” Pryor said. “… We want to make sure that we provide a space and have resources to make sure those students are equipped with those tools to be successful.”

Pryor said she and other members of the Black Student Cultural Center hope to start by working with the university to establish an emergency grant fund for students.

“I do think if we could get some more scholarship money for our students, that could really close the (racial) gap,” Pryor said. “I think our students would be able to be more successful and would not have to work two or three jobs. They could focus more on their studies, and they might not have to drop out.”

Pryor said that UWM Black Student Cultural Center staff is also doing more outreach to new students, to build trust and relationships prior to the beginning of the semester. “If students have an established relationship and know the staff members earlier, that could alleviate some of those challenges and obstacles,” she said.

‘It would change everything’

The national conversation around addressing student loan debt is getting louder since President Joe Biden took office. Biden’s plan to forgive up to $10,000 in student loan debt per person even triggered a question in February’s CNN at Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater. Some in the Democratic Party call Biden’s plan too modest.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are among those for the 43 million Americans who collectively owe more than $1.5 trillion.

In a February from Warren, Schumer said canceling more student loan debt could address debt disparities and even start to fix the national racial wealth gap.

Democratic Party leaders also hope the Biden administration’s of Richard Cordray as chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid increases opportunities to excuse more student loan debt nationwide. In a , Warren said she believes Cordray, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, can greatly benefit borrowers struggling with student loan debt.

“Rich Cordray has spent years fighting on behalf of American families … I’m very glad he will get to apply his fearlessness and expertise to protecting student loan borrowers and bringing much needed accountability to the federal student loan program,” Warren said.

But some are criticizing this push to eliminate debt across the board, worried it would give a break to the wrong people. During the recent , Reason editor-at-large Nick Gillespie said forgiving student loan debt for all would give wealthy families help they don’t need.

“There is no reason on God’s green Earth that wealthy people should not be paying their way. When they take out loans or their kids take out loans, they should pay them back,” Gillespie said.

Brookings Institution fellow Adam Looney argues that “even modest student loan forgiveness proposals are staggeringly expensive and … would exceed cumulative spending on many of the nation’s major antipoverty programs over the last several decades.” Looney proposes more

But Harrington of the Center for Responsible Lending said canceling all student loan debt could be an effective way to address racial gaps in debt and wealth.

“Debt cancellation is absolutely a way to begin to address racial inequities. If you cancel the debt, and it disproportionately impacts Black and brown people, now they have the ability to do other things,” Harrington said. “It will literally move so many families to positive wealth from negative wealth. That is not nothing. That is powerful.”

With no relief yet in sight, Myrick continues to chip away at his six-figure loan debt, which continues to exact a steep toll. The debt kept his family from qualifying for the lowest rate on a home loan, and it has stalled plans to begin investing in real estate.

Myrick said canceling all student debt would transform his family’s life and help address the deep racial disparities in Milwaukee and nationally.

“Some people wouldn’t even have debt if you eliminate those. I’m one of them,” he said. “I wouldn’t have to work a second job if they wiped them clean. I would have more time with the family. Wiping student loans across the board for Black folks … it would change everything.”

This story was produced as part of an investigative reporting class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication under the direction of Dee J. Hall, Wisconsin Watch’s managing editor, who contributed to this story. The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch () collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Julie Welch starts each school day by heading down the stairs to her basement. Last summer, she turned her guest room into a classroom for the La Crosse School District’s Coulee Region Virtual Academy, an online charter school created as an alternative to in-person classes this year.

Welch checks email and opens the day’s online lessons for her 6th grade class before starting their morning meeting on Zoom.

“Just like if we were in person when kids arrive, we start the day in a circle, greeting each other and just kind of doing that check in, like ‘Hey, how are you doing? What’s new? What do you have to share?’” Welch said.

For some of her more self-sufficient students, Welch said the 30-minute meeting may be the only time she sees them for the day. The lessons are designed to be done independently, but she offers help sessions for each subject on Zoom and hosts virtual office hours for students who need extra help.

But Welch has been surprised by the relationships she’s built with students and their families without even meeting them in person.

“It’s amazing to me how it’s not the same as being in school and being in a classroom with each other, but it isn’t as remote and lonely as I thought it would be,” Welch said.

She said there’s a special intimacy that comes from seeing into her students’ homes and sharing her home as a Zoom backdrop. Family pets often make cameos during their meetings, and Welch said the class has even collectively experienced loss.

“I lost my dog this year. She died and my kids were heartbroken with me because they knew her. They saw her every day. And so when that happened, they actually helped me through that,” Welch said.

Welch also started what she calls “Club Time” on Fridays, when students can share their passions with their classmates. She said kids have done everything from baking demonstrations to origami lessons and video game demonstrations.

When signing up to teach the online program, Welch worried that she would draw only one type of student in her class: kids from families who could afford to keep them at home.

Education equity has always been important to her, and she worried the online classroom would lack the diversity of students that she had taught in person for the past 30 years.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Yes, I do have families who have made the commitment to stay home or to make sure their child is with a grandparent. And some of my students are the caregiver to their siblings,” Welch said. “I have students that are home because of medical concerns. And I have students who are home because their parents just didn’t want the back and forth (between in-person and online).”

Still, teaching online is different than being together in person, Welch said.

She said some students have because they have poor internet connections or can’t attend help sessions throughout the day because of commitments at home.

Welch said some of her students have also experienced isolation. of more than 3,000 Wisconsin families by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found that around 3% of families said remote learning impacted their child’s emotional health. A similar number expressed concern about their child’s social development and connections with friends.

Welch said a few of her students switched back to in-person classes after the first semester because of these concerns. She tries to talk with her class about loneliness while seeking ways to foster friendships between students.

“There are times where I’ll finish my lesson and I’m like ‘You’re welcome to go get some work done or I can just leave this Zoom open for 15 minutes and you all can just chat,’” Welch said. “It’s so fun just to listen to them and they’re kids. It’s kind of like sitting in the corner of the room. I’m just there as a guide on the side, but I don’t really say much and I just let them interact and get the socialization that they need.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.