Students with disabilities especially fell behind during distance learning. A bank’s grant to a Prince George’s County organization will help.
But when the coronavirus pandemic forced the D.C. region to shut down in-person schooling, Sweeney’s learning nearly stopped, said her mother, Karen Sweeney.
“She went from having a normal life and routine she liked, where her day started with the bus picking her up and taking her to school, to completely being shut down,” Karen Sweeney said of her daughter. “She didn’t understand why everything had stopped. She’d wake up, get ready and then ask ‘Where’s the bus?’ We had to tell her it wasn’t coming, and she got so frustrated.
“He has a dedicated aide at school who can model the instruction for him when he’s in person, at school,” Leach said. “But all of that stopped in the beginning of the pandemic. He would come and get me and say, ‘Mommy, mommy, mommy.’“I had to sit with him and also do my work,” she said. “It was a very hard and very stressful time. He missed the interaction of other kids and being together. Virtual couldn’t replace that.