Thanks to funding from the Walton Family Foundation, Underscore embarks on a reporting project to examine how COVID-19 is changing the 2020-21 school year. In partnership with Pamplin Media Group's Madras Pioneer, Sergio Olmos will investigate the impact of COVID-19 on students in the Jefferson County School District, which is roughly one-third Latino, one-third Native American and one-third non-Hispanic white. Issues explored will include language/cultural barriers as well as the lack of broad-band digital services for many families and disparities in health care. Olmos will explore what happened at the end of the 2019-20 school year, check in with how parents and students feel the current year is going, and find out how schools plan to address obstacles along the way.
