ELMHURST – About 50 students who would otherwise have limited or no internet access for doing their homework for classes at Elmhurst Community Unit School District 205 now have that opportunity, thanks to a donation from the Elmhurst District 205 Foundation.
The Board of Education's five present members unanimously approved the foundation's $3,750 donation Oct. 24, which covers the expense for about 50 Sprint hotspot devices that allow each student recipient to connect his or her Chromebook or computer to the internet, according to the board agenda.
Karen Stuefen, secretary of the board, thanked the foundation, the district's Executive Director of Technology David Smith and the community for its support of the foundation at the meeting.
"Here's one example of how the district is looking at equity of education for all of its students," she said.
Superintendent David Moyer thanked the foundation, which, he said, stepped in "immediately" upon Smith's request for funding support for the program.
"With all of our Chromebooks and all of our one-to-one, we're redesigning how our instruction looks, and for some of the families who do not have internet in their homes, we wanted to find a way to help support them, and this was one way to do it," Moyer said. "But the funding source that we had identified last year dried up, and so the foundation stepped in and is going to provide these hotspots for families that do not have internet access."
Smith said after the board meeting that he had learned about the Sprint for ConnectED program through his peer network. He said 62 students received the hotspots last year through Title I funds, but that funding wasn't available this year due to budget cuts, and he had not budgeted it into the district's technology budget. So he appealed to the foundation for assistance.
Lisa Fanelli, the foundation's executive director, got that call in early to mid-September, she said in a phone interview Oct. 25.
"Technology's been incorporated into day-to-day learning, and so Wi-Fi is really important for that," Fanelli said. "Believe it or not, there's still some kids and some families in Elmhurst who don't have Wi-Fi."
The foundation stepped in to support families who needed help purchasing Chromebooks when the district started the one-to-one program a few years ago, she said.
Fanelli said even though public schools are paid for with tax dollars, that funding "only goes so far," and private fundraising can help make it possible for "cutting-edge technology" to be available for students.
"We are lucky to have a supportive community that understands that," she said.
School social workers identify students who are qualified for the devices, said Smith, who facilitates ordering the devices. The devices are loaned to the students while they are in district schools, he said. Sprint offers the hotspots for four years, according to the program's webpage at shawurl.com/3697.
Board members Chris Blum and John McDonough were absent for the Oct. 24 meeting.