Chicago Connected
Chicago Connected, spearheaded by Mayor Lightfoot last spring, seeks to address the digital divide throughout the Chicago School District. Because Chicago is an urban area, the majority of the barriers students are facing are either due to the financial strain of Internet plans or infrastructural limitations of accessing internet while homeless. Together with funding partners, the City of Chicago and the Chicago Public Schools developed a public-private sponsorship model. Under this plan, the school district takes on full payment of an internet plan for eligible families, meaning they will be provided access at no cost for up to four years. Furthermore, for students experiencing homelessness, CPS will continue to provide hotspots at no cost, partnering with T-Mobile to provide hotspot extensions to students if/when they run into data caps.
The project is currently on track to support 100,000 students by the end of the 20-21 school year, with the additional support of 35 community organizations working to connect students and families to resources.
Chicago connected does a wonderful job of addressing the financial barriers students face, and we are hopeful a similar public-private sponsorship model could be replicated in Northfield. The other benefit of this model is that this sponsorship support could be provided to families for anywhere from a few months to multiple years, like in Chicago, as infrasturcutrual developments continue. Also, hotspot extensions for families who have run into data caps would be another part of Chicago's model HCI could explore, especially since Northfield and Rice County are within T-Mobile's coverage district.
