(light music) - Welcome to "Crosscut Now."

I'm Paris Jackson.

In today's episode, we take a look back at the digital divide affecting residents in rural Washington.

We'll show you what measures teachers had to take in Elma to help students during the pandemic.

Here's a "Crosscut" revisit from earlier this year on the challenges Elma residents face when internet access is limited in their community.

(gentle music) - Where I live, out like in the middle of nowhere, we don't get a lotta 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'd 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 expect it.

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.

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

(blinds clicking) - You 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.

It 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 lunches 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.

(light music) - I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching "Crosscut Now," your destination for nonprofit Northwest news.

Go to crosscut.com for more.

(light music continues) (gentle music)