Perfect.”

“A-L-L-I-A, my name is Allia Phillips.

I am 10 years old.

I live in New York, New York.

And I live in a shelter.

And I love playing violin.

OK, I’m going to have to stand up for this.

A lot of things are really happening right now,

like Covid-19.

[Violin playing]

I’ve heard that it is a very contagious virus.

And when people get it, a lot of people

have to go to the hospital.

But some of them have to get isolated.

It’s changed my life

because now, we don’t get to go in school.

My teacher told us that she didn’t

know if it was going to close for the whole year.

Ta-da.”

“You’ve got blanky fuzz in your hair.

Right now, me and Allia are actually

living in a family shelter.”

“I don’t like the way you brush it.

You brush it so hard.

Basically, it’s one room with a bathroom,

and then one bed and a bunk bed.

I guess, it’s now my classroom, too.”

“I got contacted by her school to go pick up

her iPad device.

And her iPad does not have internet.

The shelter that we’re in, they do not allow internet.

What classroom stuff are we going to do today?

Math?”

“Well, science is already too hard.

It keeps on pausing itself, just freezing.”

“Oh OK, I will look into that in a little bit.”

“Across the room.”

“And see what’s going on.

I have a cellphone.

We use the hot spot.

I don’t have a lot of data.

And it’s a little spotty and slow.

Essentially, that’s just where we’ve

been is puttering outside to get a better signal, hoping

it gets better.”

“A school has 17 tables in the cafeteria.

Each table has 12 seats.”

“I am worried that children are going to get left behind

because they don’t have their devices

or they didn’t have the access to the internet.

Let’s try that one again.”

“So we’ll probably have to redo our whole grade,

and relearn everything we already know.”

“Right now, my biggest worry for Allia

would be the social interaction.

My mother, who’s disabled, and her service animal

lives with us.

So we’re all in this really tiny space.”

“Yeah.

I’m worried about that

because my grandmother, she is really old.

And if she gets it or if my mother gets sick,

they could get hurt.

And if they both get it, who’s going to take care of me

that day?

And then if we’re all locked in the same room,

how are we going to be safe?”