JACKSON, Miss.—After schools shut down in March, LaKenya Bunton would get home around 7 a.m. from an overnight quality-control job at a factory, doze for a few hours, then become teacher to her 16-year-old son, Amarrius.
Her son, a rising sophomore, had received no remote-learning materials from his school and didn’t hear from most of his teachers. Ms. Bunton’s method included collecting Amarrius’s cellphone and handing him the day’s work: a packet of practice college-prep questions she printed from the internet.
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