The following story is a collaborative reporting project, including New Mexico, about rural schools during Covid- 19.
Where access to broadband is poor in areas such as the Cuba Independent School District in rural northern New Mexico, communities had to get creative with slap bracelets armed with a built-in USB drive. Students use them to download lessons after driving to an internet hotspot. Back home they can upload the lessons to their school district-supplied laptops.
How much learning have the rural students missed? Data about loss of learning is limited and the push is to get kids back in school. Funding from the federal government for broadband infrastructure grants will still be needed when the kids go back to school.
Rural schools battled bad internet, low attendance in the pandemic. Will spring semester be better? - New Mexico In Depth