Years after the COVID-19 pandemic, school districts across Pennsylvania are still working to pull students out of a nationwide reading slump. “We were not a school district that was able to be a one-to-one school district literally hours before school shut down for the pandemic — I mean literally hours before,” said Dan McGarry, superintendent of the Upper Darby School District. More than 12,500 students are enrolled in the Upper Darby School District, making it among the largest in the state. Yet prior to the pandemic, students in the district largely missed out on the technological boom of the 21st century. “I joke around like a computer was a campfire in the Upper Darby School District,” McGarry said.