Many face a steep path to recovery
Cheyanne Mumphrey – | ASSOCIATED PRESS – in the D&C on 8/1/23 on page A1
PHOENIX — By the time Aaliyah Ibarra started second grade, her family had moved five times in four years in search of stable housing. As she was about to start a new school, her mother, Bridget Ibarra, saw how much it was affecting her education.
• At 8 years old, her daughter did not know the alphabet.
“She was in second grade and couldn’t tell me any of the letters. I would point them out and she didn’t know,” Bridget Ibarra said. “She would sing the song in order, but as soon as I mixed them up, she had no idea.”
“I just didn’t know what letters were which,” says Aaliyah, now 9. “I know them now.”
The family’s struggles coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic that forced Aaliyah to begin her school experience online. Unfamiliar with a computer, Aaliyah was regularly kicked out of the virtual classroom, her mother said. Teachers complained she was not looking at the screen and took too many breaks.