In pre-K, a young Claire wowed her mother, DeNeil, by sounding out letters before her first day in kindergarten. DeNeil, like any mother, wanted her daughter to soar. But Claire’s teachers in the Providence Public School District stuck to the curriculum despite DeNeil’s best efforts. Claire struggled to read in her first and second grades.

The pandemic upended everything. DeNeil, then working from home while caring for two young children, watched her daughter’s education veer off course. She had placed Claire on a charter school waitlist since Kindergarten, but no seat ever opened.