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Via: Dr. Felicia Adams
In our more and more virtual global, equitable get entry to to the web is paramount for college kids and their households. To shrink the virtual divide and create this get entry to, colleges and the directors that lead them should pursue each and every useful resource to be had, particularly outside-the-box companions and answers.
With out get entry to to the web, many scholars are disadvantaged of data and connectivity which can be foundational to literacy, development, and abilities construction. With out get entry to to those fundamental pathways to maximum American citizens’ way of living, scholars are in the end left at the back of. It’s seriously essential for varsity directors and educators to seek out allied champions for virtual fairness on this fight. This is why Southwest Public Faculties partnered with Houston’s biggest web supplier, Comcast, to concentrate on making sure that each and every scholar has web get entry to year-round.
After 26 years of revel in in city schooling, I now function the Superintendent at Southwest Public Faculties, a tuition-free, open-enrollment college gadget the place scholars are accredited irrespective of background, educational file, or the place they reside. We attempt to organize our scholars for postsecondary readiness, and we’ve needed to reckon with the truth that good fortune ceaselessly depends on whether or not scholars have get entry to to the gear they want to be aggressive within the virtual global. After a Okay-12 schooling, our scholars can even want to adapt to a global the place on-line activity looking out, faraway operating, telehealth appointments, and extra have turn out to be the norm. Thru partnerships like Comcast, we’re in a position to bridge the space and make sure our scholars have the assets they want to matriculate to lifestyles past highschool.
Throughout Houston, many scholars don’t have dependable get entry to to the web at house, specifically those that are from lower-income families – which come with most of the scholars we train at Southwest Public Faculties. One in 10 Houston house families don’t have each an web subscription and a pc, in keeping with the U.S. Census.
It’s transparent that it is a drawback for our scholars. The problem, then again, lies in getting access to the right kind assets to supply our scholars with the gear they want to be triumphant. Southwest Public Faculties has taken steps to treatment this; our purpose is to be a 1:1 district, because of this we offer our scholars with the generation that they want to entire their schoolwork like laptops, drugs, and sensible TVs in our study rooms – then again, our method to attach our scholars to virtual assets doesn’t prevent there. We rely on partnerships to lend a hand us with this function.
At Southwest Public Faculties, we consider authentic transformation calls for disruptive inventions. Innovation in schooling method leveraging each and every to be had useful resource and best friend within the fight to supply for our scholars in an more and more virtual global. Our partnership with Comcast is meant to just do that.
Comcast and Southwest Public Faculties were web hosting neighborhood useful resource occasions to supply scholars with generation and the chance to get entry to loose web. Southwest Public Faculties and Comcast have hosted over 100 low-income and under-resourced households from the neighborhood to donate Chromebook laptops to the varsity gadget and supply each and every eligible attendee with loose or discounted Web via Comcast’s Web Necessities (IE) and the Federal Executive’s Inexpensive Connectivity Program (ACP). We will be able to proceed to spouse with Comcast to make certain that each and every scholar and circle of relatives is acutely aware of the loose and discounted web choices at their fingertips.
Since Southwest Public Faculties first opened in 1998, our academics and directors were devoted to remodeling our scholars’ lives. Thru this distinctive partnership with Comcast, doorways were open to innovation and different sides of offering equitable assets to all scholars.
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