Chalkbeat Chicago

As principal Daniel Kramer pored over data tracking whether Roosevelt High School’s freshmen and sophomores were staying on track amid the pandemic, he noticed a troubling trend: While girls had held their own as coronavirus tested the school, boys were falling behind, widening a longstanding gender gap at the predominantly Latino school on Chicago’s Northwest Side.

This past school year, Chicago leaders pointed to grading and attendance numbers as evidence the pandemic had caused more academic damage for the district’s Black and Latino students. But data obtained by Chalkbeat shows even more dramatic disparities when gender is factored in...