MILWAUKEE — Ruby Rodriguez remembers the days when English class meant walking to her desk, talking to friends and checking the board.
Now class begins when her classmates' names appear online. She sits alone at the dining room table, barefoot and petting the family dog. It's her freshman year at St. Anthony High School, a private Catholic school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She doesn't know what her classmates look like, since nobody ever turns on their cameras.
After schools in Milwaukee went remote last March, Ruby and her friends in eighth grade at St. Anthony's middle school missed their graduation ceremonies and parties. Her close friends attended different high schools, mostly other private schools that offered in-person instruction. St. Anthony, like many schools in urban areas, including Milwaukee Public Schools, started the fall semester online for pandemic safety reasons.
Virtual learning might be keeping Ruby, 14, and her family safer during a public health crisis. But it has made it exponentially harder for her to stay motivated and learn. Her online classes are lecture heavy, repetitive and devoid of student conversation. Her grades have dropped from A's and B's to D's and F's. She stays up too late. She sleeps a lot. She misses her friends.
Like millions of students attending school virtually this year, Ruby is floundering academically, socially and emotionally. And as the pandemic heaves into a winter surge, a slew of new reports show alarming numbers of kids falling behind, failing classes or not showing up at all.
