Cellphones out, Chromebooks in: NYC to give 350,000 students new laptops with free internet
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City officials hope the Chromebooks will help close the digital divide and replace outdated equipment.
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New York City students may no longer access their cellphones during the school day, but many will soon have new school-issued internet-enabled Chromebooks, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday.
The city is distributing 350,000 LTE- or 5G-connected Chromebooks to students across roughly 1,700 schools over the “coming months,” officials said, in an effort to replace outdated equipment that no longer meet instructional needs or current security standards.
Students will be able to take home the free devices — and keep them until they graduate, officials said. Since they come with internet access, the devices will allow students to go online wherever they live, whether they have broadband or not, a move aimed at closing the digital divide, Adams said.
More than 30% of New York City households, with more than 2.5 million residents, lack broadband, according to city officials.
The city is expected to spend $129 million in capital costs for the devices and $198 million in operating expenses over the next four years, city officials said. Part of the program is expected to be paid for with savings from a deal the Adams administration made earlier this year with T-Mobile, tapping the company as the major carrier for city operations (including the school-issued Chromebooks).
“This is a monumental investment in our young people’s potential and working-class families in our city,” said Adams, announcing the initiative from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. “We’re going to focus on the locations where the needs are the greatest, so that students are able continue to keep on learning, take advantage of remote opportunities, and apply for jobs and colleges.”
He continued: “We may have taken away cellphones during the day, but you got Chromebooks for the entire day.”
City officials plan to use data to target the neediest areas for the phased-in rollout of the devices. Schools will receive priority if their devices are older than five years or they don’t have enough devices for each student, schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said. The next priority will go to students in temporary housing, followed by high-poverty schools (with at least 86% of students from low-income families), new schools, and those that have filed appeals.
New York City purchased an estimated 725,000 devices over multiple years when schools pivoted to remote learning during the COVID pandemic, costing about $360 million. Those devices are now out of warranty, officials said. The Education Department’s plan to count those devices two years ago hit a snag and was halted, but officials noted that 400,000 devices were reported as working last year.
Matthew Fraser, the city’s chief technology officer, called the Chromebook initiative a “great equalizer” and “lifeline” to students.
“When you come into a space where you may not have the economic means to have the best clothes, the best toys, the best cars, the best tools, one of the things that can get you out of that systemic cycle of poverty is access to education,” he said. “As time progresses, technology becomes the underpinning of how education is delivered.”
The initiative also comes at a time when the city is limiting student’s personal devices, including lap tops. Under the state’s bell-to-bell ban, students are no longer allowed to use any devices that connect to the internet, and some families expressed concerns that students used their own laptops to complete schoolwork during the school day.
Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.