When Victoria Vial’s Miami high school closed last spring and her classes went online, it felt like the beginning of an adventure. “I wore my pajamas and sat in my comfortable chair,” the 13-year-old recalls. “I was texting my friends during class.”
Then she received her study progress report. Before the pandemic, she was an A and B student, falling into three grades. The academic slide left her mother, Carola Mengolini, in tears. She insisted that her daughter make to-do lists and moved the girl’s workspace into the guest room to increase her grades.
During the summer, Victoria’s tennis and theater camps were canceled. Her family postponed a planned trip to Argentina to visit her extended family.
She formed a pandemic pod with five close friends, but the girls argued. Subcliques arose and Victoria and her best friend were disfellowshipped. The pod fell apart.
The return of face-to-face education last fall brought some relief, but with some of her classmates still at home, teachers had to shift their focus from face-to-face children to online children, leaving students disorganized and left behind.