Most reports about Black students’ experiences during the 2020-21 school year focused on challenges their families faced. There were urgent calls for schools to reopen, especially to better serve students of color.

Because of that, I was surprised to hear some Black families at a town hall meeting focusing on the benefits of distance learning.

“We’ve started something new that we can’t go away from. … Parts of this [are] working for my kid,” the mother of a high school senior reflected during the event.

That meeting was one of the first times I heard Black families discuss positive experiences during virtual school.

What was missing in that previous reporting was the acknowledgment that schools were struggling to serve Black students before the pandemic. We know this to be true from research on Black children’s limited access to grade-level content and higher likelihood of severe disciplinary measures.

In my work as an elementary school teacher and principal, too often I saw teachers and administrators struggling to serve Black families. In my work at Silicon Schools Fund, I partner with and learn from leaders across Northern California who are creating solutions to education’s challenges — in and out of a pandemic.

After meeting with families throughout California, I’m convinced that the high school parent who spoke at the town hall is right. While virtual learning during the pandemic has been far from ideal, it has two benefits that have helped schools better serve Black students and families: increased technology access that dramatically closed the digital divide for most students and stronger communication between schools and families.

Read the full article about the benefits of distance learning for Black families by Loretta Hickman at The Hechinger Report.