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The pandemic missing: The kids who didn’t go back to school

Ezekiel West, 10, opens up his K12/Stride school loaner laptop computer outside his home in Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. In January, Ezekiel began studying in a public online school for California students, but his mother and attorney are concerned the program isn't flexible enough for Ezekiel, who is years behind in reading. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Miesha Clarke sits with her 10-year-old son, Ezekiel West, as he opens his new K12/Stride school loaner laptop computer outside his home in Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. Before the pandemic shutdowns, he was shuffled from school to school when educators couldn’t address his impulsive behavior. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Ezekiel West, 10, stands for a portrait outside his home in Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. At least three of the students that lawyer Allison Hertog has represented, including Ezekiel, have disappeared from school for long periods since schools resumed in-person instruction. Their situations were avoidable, she said: “It’s pretty disgraceful that the school systems allowed this to go on for so long.” (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Miesha Clarke and her 10-year-old son, Ezekiel West, stand together for a portrait outside their home in Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. An administrative judge ruled that Los Angeles’ schools had violated Ezekiel’s rights and ordered the district to give him a spot at a new school, with a special plan to ease him back into learning and trusting teachers. The school didn’t follow the plan, so his mother stopped sending him in October. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Ezekiel West, 10, stands for a portrait outside his home in Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. When he returned to school in fall 2021 as a third grader, he was frustrated that his classmates had made more progress as the years passed. “I did not feel prepared,” he says. “I couldn’t really learn as fast as the other kids, and that kind of made me upset.” (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Miesha Clarke and her 10-year-old son, Ezekiel West, stand for a portrait outside their home in Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. During online learning, his mother couldn’t get home internet and struggled with the WiFi hotspots provided by the school. She worked as a home health aide and couldn’t monitor Ezekiel online. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Kailani Taylor-Cribb holds her GED diploma outside her home in Asheville, N.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. She is among hundreds of thousands of students around the country who vanished from public school rolls during the pandemic and didn’t resume studies elsewhere. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Kailani Taylor-Cribb stands in front of mural at a neighborhood community garden in Asheville, N.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. She knows, looking back, that things could have been different. While she has no regrets about leaving high school, she says she might have changed her mind if someone at school had shown more interest and personal attention to her needs. “All they had to do was take action,” she said. “There were so many times they could have done something. And they did nothing.” (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Kailani Taylor-Cribb stands for a portrait at a neighborhood community garden in Asheville, N.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. In December, Kailani moved to North Carolina to make a new start. She teaches dance to elementary school kids now. In January, she passed her high school equivalency exams, and she plans to study choreography. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Kailani Taylor-Cribb stands for a portrait outside her home in Asheville, N.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. She has ADHD and says the white teaching assistant assigned to help her focus in her new class targeted her because she’s Black, blaming Kailani when classmates acted up. She also didn’t allow Kailani to use her headphones while working independently in class, something permitted in her special education plan to help her focus, according to Kailani. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Kailani Taylor-Cribb stands for a portrait at a neighborhood community garden in Asheville, N.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. In ninth grade, a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she was unhappy at home and had been demoted from honors geometry because of poor grades. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

Kailani Taylor-Cribb walks through her neighborhood in Asheville, N.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. Kailani hasn’t taken a single class in what used to be her high school since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She vanished from the public school roll in Cambridge, Mass., in 2021 and has been, from an administrative standpoint, unaccounted for since then. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek)

The pandemic missing: The kids who didn’t go back to school