30K NYC Students To Get Free Internet Devices

NEW YORK CITY — More than 30,000 New York City high schoolers will get free smartphone-like devices as part of an effort to increase internet access, officials said Thursday. The city's Department of Education has partnered with Sprint to distribute the gadgets at 66 high schools across the five boroughs, officials said.

Students can get online with the devices, which are basically smartphones without texting or calling capabilities, or use them to create a Wi-Fi hotspot to connect a computer or tablet to the internet, officials said.

The initiative, part of Sprint's 1Million Project, aims to give disadvantaged students the internet access they need to "complete homework assignments, study and do independent research and reading," city schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said in a statement. Devices are going to students at all high schools in the city's Community School's Initiative, which serve large numbers of students from high-poverty areas.

"For low and middle-income students, free, high-speed home Wi-Fi can mean the difference between excelling at school and falling behind," Richard Buery, the deputy mayor for strategic policy initiatives, said in a statement. "I am so excited to stand alongside our partners at Sprint to deliver a resource that truly embodies our promise of equity and excellence to New York City students."

(For more on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Devices will go to a total of 30,775 students in 24 schools in Brooklyn, 23 in the Bronx, nine in Manhattan, nine in Queens and one on Staten Island, the DOE said.

Students will get a free high-speed LTE data connection for the first three gigabytes of material they access, with additional downloads available at a slower 2G speed, according to the DOE. City schools started distributing the wireless devices this week and will help students and parents learn how to use them throughout the school year, the DOE said.

Some 35 percent of American households living below the poverty line don't have internet access at home, according to a 2015 analysis by the Center for Economic Opportunity. Locally, 40 percent of New Yorkers with less than a high school education lack internet access, nearly four times the 11-percent rate for New Yorkers with a bachelor's degree or higher, according to a 2014 report by city Comptroller Scott Stringer.

The city's initiative is part of Sprint's 1Million Project, which aims to put wireless devices in the hands of a million low-income students across the country. The telecommunications giant will provide the internet service on the devices New York students will get.

“It’s not right that so many kids should have to struggle to do their work and reach their potential, and that’s why we are committed to doing what we can to help level the playing field for students here in New York and in high schools all across the U.S.," Doug Michelman, president of Sprint's 1Million Project, said in a statement.

The DOE, in a partnership with Sprint, Google and the city's three library systems, also loans 5,000 Wi-Fi hotspots each year to families with students in public schools, the DOE said.

(Lead image by Will Mantell/NYC Department of Education)