Imagine you’re hosting ten kids for dinner. Nine of them are well-fed. One is food-insecure and hasn’t eaten since yesterday morning. /1

You begin serving the meal, starting with the well-fed kids first. Just as you’re about to serve the food-insecure kid, you realize you didn’t plan well, and you don’t have enough food. /2

The well-fed kids begin eating their hot meals, while the food-insecure kid, who is desperate to eat, has to wait while you scrounge up something else from the fridge. /3

That’s what I think of when I see people making comparisons to other DMV school districts who are “ahead” of HCPSS with online learning. /4

Those districts are “ahead” because they didn’t plan to ensure equity (in this case, equity of access via devices/internet) or the viability of their systems before deploying online learning. /5

Some districts saw their systems crash under the load. Others began online learning *before* getting devices out to students who needed them. /6

Other districts are not able to provide devices to all kids (if any), so they are handing out printed material at meal distribution sites - which kids may or may not be visiting, depending on the public transit situation. /7

The end result is that the kids who may have the greatest need for continued learning and engagement have to wait while their counterparts with more resources start without them. And what they do get is a lesser experience. /8

And the achievement gap just gets wider. /end

#deadhorsebeaten