(gentle music) - Where I live out, like, in the middle of nowhere we don't get a lot of internet plans going out there.

And so the one we have is really slow.

And about all my neighbors have the same one.

During the pandemic, everything was online, everything.

So that made it really hard 'cause I could only do so much.

Like, two hours would go by and I barely have anything done 'cause it would just go on and off.

And then it just makes you wanna give up on using it.

- Knowing that certain students didn't have internet or capability, we were making paper pencil packets of work.

This math packet goes on this bus route or this food route, so expected.

And then me knowing my seniors that needed classes in order to graduate, I would make the copies and deliver 'em to their houses.

Knock on their doors.

(gentle music continues) - The signal is probably the strongest back in her bedroom, which is at the very end of the house down there.

- You'll have to, like, open up the window and you'll just be minding your own business and suddenly it'll just go, oop, no bars.

And you'll have to leave it here, like that, sometimes on the side.

Depends on what it wants to do.

- I mean, at first glances it might look like we kind of are way out in the boonies or something.

But the city limits is literally one mile.

I mean, we are one mile outside of town.

And to this day we still don't have internet here.

And I've looked, you know, for almost three years now.

- These problems were problems we've always had.

You know, the idea that students are gonna go home to spotty internet.

Or you know, like, school lunches.

I mean, sometimes school lunch is the only meal you get.

These were pre-COVID problems.

It's just they were problems that we could ignore.

And through the pandemic we couldn't ignore 'em anymore.

They're still problems, we just saw 'em better.