To compensate for the painfully slow internet in their Pomona home, Yesenia Miranda Meza\u2019s sons kept their cameras off during pandemic remote learning \u2013 causing tension with their teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because Miranda Meza couldn\u2019t afford a faster connection, the family was constantly at odds balancing the demands of online work and schooling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can’t be here trying to fix the internet or tell them to get on a camera when I’m on an important work call trying to make money for us to live,\u201d said Miranda Meza, a single mother of three boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. <\/em>Sign up for The 74 Newsletter<\/strong><\/a><\/p> Miranda Meza\u2019s home internet constraints are part of a larger problem affecting thousands of low-income families in Los Angeles County, according to a new report<\/a> from the California Community Foundation and Digital Equity LA coalition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report found Charter Communications, which operates Spectrum \u2013 the monopoly internet provider serving 96.7% of Los Angeles county residents \u2014 consistently reserves its best offers for residents in wealthier neighborhoods, leaving low-income families paying more for the same or slower service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For children nationwide, especially those from low-income families, the pandemic reinforced the crisis and scale of the digital divide<\/a> as students with inequitable access to affordable and reliable internet scrambled to do online coursework<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After remote learning began in spring 2020, families resorted to extreme solutions to make sure their school age children had reliable WiFi. In August 2020 a Twitter photo of two young girls from Northern California sitting on the ground of a Taco Bell parking lot<\/a> with their laptops for a connection and doing their online homework went viral. (Note: Spectrum does not provide service to this part of California and was not the family\u2019s internet provider)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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