Six months after schools closed amid the coronavirus crisis and with online learning in full swing, tens of thousand of students remain without adequate digital access and school districts in Los Angeles County report they still need nearly 50,000 computers and Wi-Fi hot spots.
The numbers are a stark reminder that technology access continues to pose a significant barrier to distance learning as schools in Los Angeles County will not be allowed to fully reopen until at least November.
“I’m very concerned if there’s even a small fraction of students who aren’t accessing, especially when we’re talking about students who are already more vulnerable and disadvantaged,” said Debra Duardo, superintendent of the L.A. County Office of Education. “There is already a gap, whether you want to call it an academic gap or an opportunity gap. There is already a gap, and we don’t want that gap to get any larger.”
The Office of Education, which provides services and financial oversight for the county’s 80 school districts, released the numbers Tuesday, the same day that the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to approve $14.9 million in spending to help close the technology gap. Duardo’s office had requested the funding based on a survey of needs in local school systems.
Some district officials told The Times they have not yet been able to distribute computers and hot spots to every student who needs them. Others have distributed the devices and hot spots to all students but said that inadequate technology, outdated equipment and other problems have at times made it difficult or impossible for children to use the devices.
The need is even more acute now compared with the spring, when schools initially closed, because new state education policy has made online learning more rigorous for this academic year — with full schedules, mandatory attendance and heightened expectations for students. At the same time, massive backlogs in supply have made it impossible for many districts to secure the computers and hot spots on their own.
In the Palmdale School District, about 2,000 kindergarten students still need iPads, said Jim Smith, manager of information services.
For now, families that can’t get a school-issued device are being urged to use any computers they have in the home, and when all else fails, the district sends paper packets home, he said.
“It’s a big concern,” Smith said. “It’s probably one of our primary issues and concerns right now.”
The district also needs newer Chromebooks because many of the ones that have been issued to students are about 4 or 5 years old, Smith said.
“It’s not that those students don’t have anything available to them, it’s that it’s not adequate,” Smith said. “When we send them home for distance learning they don’t perform as well as the modern units. So you see things like dropped calls or jittery audio.”
In some cases, district leaders say the computers they distributed were never meant to be used outside the classroom, creating challenges for home users. In other cases, computers have been damaged or lost or the hot spots school officials have are inadequate or simply don’t work in certain places.
“Our kids have access but it’s very fragile,” said Lillian Maldonado French, superintendent of Mountain View School District in El Monte. “We really are hoping to have a better, more stable solution for our community.”
Compton Unified School District Supt. Darin Brawley said that while it took time to distribute technology in the spring — partly due to delayed orders — Compton ultimately met their needs. Still, the district now needs about 3,500 devices and 1,500 hot spots.
“We had hot spots, but the ones we are using were not solving the issue of connectivity,” Brawley said. “Our kids are struggling to find a spot on the property or the house where the device will actually work.”
And about 20% of the computing devices handed…
Read More: Digital divide still harms tens of thousands of L.A. students