Whom Eagle Pass Independent School DistrictWe are right on the border of the United States and Mexico. Approximately 95 percent of our students are Hispanic and most of them speak Spanish. Ours is a close-knit community where many people live next door to family members, which is wonderful, but it also brought some challenges during the pandemic.
COVID kept circulating through the community over and over again, and it was common to hear people talk about how they had had it half a dozen times. The number of people who died in our community was heartbreaking and scared a lot of people. even the new york times posted a story in August 2020 about the high rate of new infections here.
When we returned to fully in-person education, families did not want to send their students back to school. They were scared and didn’t understand why we couldn’t do another year of virtual school.
Before the pandemic we had excellent attendance. We are a Title I district, so many students were counting on the free breakfast and lunch they would receive for attending. But during the pandemic, our attendance was terribly low. At its lowest point, attendance was about 5 percent, which put our funding in jeopardy. Even after our schools reopened, attendance only hit the 70-73 percent range.
Laura Ascione is the editorial director of eSchool Media. She is a graduate of the prestigious Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.
