By Hailey Branson-Potts, Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2020
With schools closed because of the coronavirus, educators in vast stretches of rural California are struggling not only to teach their students but to reach them.
From the mountain hamlets of Northern California to the farming communities of the Central Valley to the desert towns near the U.S.-Mexico border, small schools are grappling with how to serve far-flung, impoverished students with less access to at-home internet, spotty cellphone service and who rely on schools to feed them.
In Trinity County, some bus drivers are traveling up to 1.5 hours along winding mountain roads to deliver two meals per day to families who can’t afford to drive into town. In Siskiyou County, students are dropping off homework on teachers’ front porches. In Tulare County, one tiny district hurriedly installed internet antennae throughout town, including the roofs of some houses.
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