Four Years Of Free Internet For Montclair's Students

Knowledge isn’t free… but it should be.

In response to an “alarming achievement gap in Montclair’s public schools,” Montclair Kids First - a coalition of Montclair parents and residents - announced plans to sponsor financially disadvantaged Montclair families with free home Internet access for four years.

• See related article: Black and White: Fixing The Student Achievement Gap In Montclair

In collaboration with JerseyOn, a statewide nonprofit focused on connecting low-income students and their families to the Internet, Montclair Kids First (MKF) will fund the purchase of a series of Sprint NETGEAR Fuse Mobile Hotspot devices.

According to a release, the technology will be made available to all Montclair resident parents whose children attend Montclair public schools and qualify for the district’s free and reduced lunch program.

MKF members hope to ensure that over 1,500 Montclair students will have the opportunity to receive free Internet access in their homes.

The group plans to announce a formal process for families to apply for free Internet service by autumn of the 2015-16 school year.

Each hotspot device will provide 3GBs of free monthly data service for four continuous years on Sprint’s 4GLTE network. There will be no cost or obligation to the user, but the device will be restricted to educational use, and Sprint and JerseyOn will ensure each Internet access device will block anything deemed inappropriate for children, the release stated.

Over the summer months, MKF members plan to proactively outreach various community organizations, local religious leaders and Montclair School District leadership in hopes of building additional partnerships around the initiative. If the introduction and implementation of the program is successful, MKF hopes to develop and grow the program to sponsor computers and other learning tools and devices to all economically disadvantaged students in Montclair.

“Connectivity provides valuable learning opportunities,” stated MKF Member Sam Cole. “It has become critical to preparing kids for college and careers and has become a vital tool for students to communicate with teachers. Every child in Montclair should be provided this opportunity and it is simply unacceptable that the only way some of our kids are able to access the Internet is from their classroom or our public library. We need a paradigm shift in how our community addresses these and other challenges.”

“Today’s announcement is the launch of a series of initiatives that MKF will look to fund and implement,” added MKF Member Matthew Frankel. “Ideas will be announced in partnership with its membership and Montclair’s community organizations and we hope to continue filling voids that address the specific needs of all our kids. These initiatives are optional to Montclair parents. There will be no obligations and will simply be available to the community. It is our hope that those who have not yet joined MKF will do so and lend their voice to developing ideas that will serve our kids.”

“This problem is 100 percent solvable, but it takes excellent, localized program’s like MKF’s to help close the opportunity gap… I applaud their work,” stated JerseyOn Chairman Josh Gottheimer.

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