At the outset of an unprecedentedly difficult year, schools are trying to help struggling students cope — a challenge exponentially complicated by the fact that many of them are learning remotely.

With less than three weeks left before the start of school, huge questions remain about what the fall will look like for thousands of students with disabilities in Boston, including when they will be able to return for in-person instruction and how extensive it will be.

School districts across the state have struggled with the abrupt shift to online learning. But Worcester has had an unusually rocky experience. Interviews with more than 20 parents, students, teachers and school committee members, and review of a half dozen district documents paint a portrait of a district focused on process and procedure at a time when nimbleness was imperative.

Roughly two-thirds of Black and Hispanic students live in districts where schools are starting the year remotely. By contrast, most white students—about 70 percent—live in school districts with “hybrid” back-to-school plans that include some learning time inside school classrooms.

Data published by advocacy group Lawyers for Civil Rights show in many cases students with disabilities and those at predominantly Black and Latino schools were less likely to receive laptops compared to their peers without disabilities or at whiter schools.

Boston Public Schools mistakenly denied 62 students — many of them children of color who came from private, charter, or parochial schools — entry to the district’s coveted exam schools since last year.

Galvanized by a summer of civil unrest, teachers across the Commonwealth are planning to integrate the tenets of antiracism into their curriculum during a school year already defined by change amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The state’s disparity is slightly higher than that of Alabama, the report by the nonprofit Appleseed Network found.

At the end of a two-and-a-half-hour Zoom meeting — in which dozens testified, mostly in favor of the proposed change — the Berkshire Hills Regional School District committee voted unanimously Thursday evening to rename the local middle school in honor of Great Barrington’s best-known native son.

The state’s formula for funding public schools has changed over time in ways that pump extra money into wealthier districts while shortchanging low-income areas, according to a report released Monday by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

Students and staff at three schools mentioned in a previous Globe story said they have seen improvements, including more regular cleaning, reduced odors, and new janitors.

Although more students would be classified as low-income under Governor Charlie Baker's budget, districts would get less extra money for each one of those students than they expected to receive.