Because of the covid-19 pandemic, 2020 became the first year ever that high-school students across the United States had to take — and prepare for — the AP exam online from their homes rather than in a classroom setting.

This posed unique challenges for schools like Phillip and Sala Burton Academic High School in San Francisco, where more than two-thirds of the students come from low-income families. Eirik Nielsen, an AP history teacher there, let Washington Post education reporter Laura Meckler follow the ups and downs of his teaching life from March through May 2020, as he worked around the clock to remotely support his sophomore students — many of whom have difficult home lives, health issues and limited access to technology and the Internet.

Out of this reporting, Meckler wrote the piece “The test of their lives,” which chronicles the challenges Nielsen and his students faced as the AP exam approached. In this audio episode, listeners can follow her months-long reporting journey for that story. The podcast features interviews with the teacher and several of his students, a look at the process of finding and chronicling their tale, and even the parallel challenge Meckler faced of helping her own two sons with their remote classes while working on this piece.

As schools across the country wrestle with the question of how to best return to teaching in the fall, the story of Nielsen’s class gives us a window into the highs and lows, successes and struggles, that distance learning brings with it.

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Interested in hearing other intimate stories about how the pandemic has reshaped people’s lives? The Washington Post produced a special audio series for the “All Told” podcast, which features first-person accounts from around the country as Americans grapple in different ways with life during the coronavirus. Listen to the episodes here:

Explore more first-person accounts of the pandemic:

This is the 11th and last episode in The Post’s coronavirus podcast series, which each week has brought listeners inside a different person’s experience of the pandemic. Previous episodes have chronicled a week in the life of an emergencyroom worker, NBA player, blues guitarist, rancher, minister, librarian, high school graduate and dentist.

For this final episode, we turn not just to someone whose life has been affected by the pandemic, but to someone whose work will help determine its future course. Timothy Sheahan is a 43-year-old virologist, who has been studying ways to stop coronaviruses for 11 years. Now, he's racing to develop drugs for this current version of the virus that's swept across the world. As the global infection rate mounts, his job as a researcher has never been more urgent. It’s a rewarding but also difficult situation for this father of two young girls. Sheahan worries he’s falling short of giving both the public and his family everything they need of him.

Listen to a week in his life, in his own words.

Previous episodes:

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Explore more first-person accounts of the pandemic:

This is the tenth episode in The Post’s coronavirus podcast series, which each week brings listeners inside a different person’s experience of the pandemic. Previous episodes have chronicled a week in the life of an emergency room worker, an NBA player, a blues guitarist, a rancher, a minister, a librarian, a city council member and a recent college graduate.

In this episode, we peer inside the life of Dr. Yetunde Patrick, a 35-year-old dentist who runs her own practice in Washington, DC. After having to close her office for several months because of the Coronavirus, she recently reopened for elective procedures — the same week that nation-wide protests over police brutality and racial injustice spread across the country. In Washington, the protests literally came to Dr. Yetunde Patrick’s front door — it was broken into amid the chaos.

Listen to this tumultuous week in her life, in her own words.

Share your story

Tell us how your life has changed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and help us share first-person accounts of life during the pandemic.

Previous episodes:

Get vital coronavirus news from The Post for free: 

Explore more first-person accounts of the pandemic:

This is the ninth episode in The Post’s coronavirus podcast series, which each week brings listeners inside a different person’s experience of the pandemic. Previous episodes have chronicled a week in the life of an emergency room worker, an NBA player, a blues guitarist, a rancher, a minister, a librarian, a city council member and a recent college graduate.

In this episode, we peer inside the life of Jacob May, a 17-year-old from Midland, Mich., as he finishes his last days of high school. Because of the pandemic, his classes went online. But in a devastating twist of fate, he and many of his classmates returned to school in late May as masked volunteers. The high school became an emergency shelter when flooding destroyed the homes of many people in his community.

Listen to May’s experience, in his own words.

Share your story

Tell us how your life has changed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and help us share first-person accounts of life during the pandemic.

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Explore more first-person accounts of the pandemic:

This is the eighth episode in The Post’s coronavirus podcast series, which each week brings listeners inside a different person’s experience of the pandemic. Previous episodes have chronicled a week in the life of an emergency-room worker, an NBA player, a blues guitarist, a rancher, a minister, a librarian and a city council member.

In this episode, we peer inside the life of Rachel Leach, a 21-year-old student. The week that she recorded voice memos for The Post was supposed to be the week she graduated from the College of Saint Rose, in Albany, New York. But instead of parties and ceremonies, solitude marked the end of her college chapter.

All over the country this year, as graduations have been cancelled, students have been left to process major life transitions on their own. For those like Leach, whose path to attending and finishing college included many obstacles, the lack of communal celebration carries a unique emotional weight.

Listen to a week in her life, in her own words.

Share your story

Tell us how your life has changed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and help us share first-person accounts of life during the pandemic.

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Explore more first-person accounts of the pandemic:

This is the seventh episode in The Post’s coronavirus podcast series, which each week brings listeners inside a different person’s experience of the pandemic. Previous episodes have chronicled a week in the life of an emergency-room worker, an NBA player, a blues guitarist, a minister, a librarian and a city council member.

In this episode, we peer inside the life of Terry Swanson, a 71-year-old farmer and cattle rancher in Colorado. On his ranch, he raises calves until they’re ready to be sold to larger stockyards.

Many such independent ranchers had already been struggling before the pandemic, as the meat industry consolidated and drove down the prices it paid ranchers for their cattle. But with coronavirus outbreaks shuttering some major meat-processing plants and reducing production at others, ranchers such as Swanson are having even more trouble making ends meet.

Share your story

Tell us how your life has changed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and help us share first-person accounts of life during the pandemic.

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Explore more first-person accounts of the pandemic:

This is the sixth episode in The Post’s coronavirus podcast series, which each week brings listeners inside a different person’s experience of the pandemic. Previous episodes have chronicled a week in the life of an emergency room worker, an NBA player, a blues guitarist, a minister and a librarian.

Gabe Albornoz is a Democratic council member in Montgomery County, Md., where roughly a quarter of all of the state's covid-19 cases have occurred. As chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, he has helped lead his county's response to the pandemic.

Albornoz shared recordings with The Post as he went about his week, juggling the demands of his constituents and his family — holding council meetings over video conference, parenting his four children and wrestling with urgent policy decisions for a community in crisis.

Listen to his story, in his own words.

Share your story

Tell us how your life has changed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and help us share first-person accounts of life during the pandemic.

Previous episodes:

Get vital coronavirus news from The Post for free: 

Explore more first-person accounts of the pandemic:

This is the fifth episode in The Post’s coronavirus podcast series, which each week brings listeners inside a different person’s experience of the pandemic. Previous episodes have chronicled a week in the life of an emergency-room worker, a blues guitarist, a minister and a librarian.

This newest episode features a professional athlete — Washington Wizards point guard Ish Smith. The basketball star agreed to record audio diaries over the course of a week in April, while isolated at home. In any other year, this would be the most competitive time in the NBA season. But because of the pandemic, Smith found himself with less pressure and more free time than his intensely structured schedule usually allows.

Listen to a week in Smith’s life, in his own words. Read the companion piece with photos of Ish by Rick Maese.

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Marquise Knox, a blues musician in St. Louis, was set to release a new album and tour with ZZ Top this spring. Now, he’s self-isolated, playing music on Facebook Live, and feeling the blues hit home. He shared recordings with The Post April 6-19.

Here’s a week in Knox’s life during the coronavirus pandemic, in his own words.

Share your story

Tell us how your life has changed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and help us share first person accounts of life during the pandemic.

Previous episodes:

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Share your story:

Tell us how your life has changed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and help us share first person accounts of life during the pandemic.

Previous episodes:

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