Pittsburgh Public Schools in line for $250,000 grant to provide mobile hotspots to students
Pittsburgh Public Schools has been awarded a $250,000 grant from a national program that links underprivileged high school students with at-home high-speed internet service.
The grant is funded by the 1Million Project Foundation, which was announced in 2016 by Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure and got underway in the last school year. Since its inception, it has distributed 113,000 mobile devices in 1,400 schools across 31 states.
Mobile hotspots are used to create areas of WiFi coverage that nearby devices can use to connect to the internet.
In Pittsburgh, the grant is expected to provide up to 700 devices, all of which would provide unlimited data and Sprint technical support to students who receive them.
The Pittsburgh Public school board is expected to vote on the grant next week, and the plan is for the devices to be in use in the upcoming school year.
Funds from the grant would pay for tablets, hotspot devices, and smartphones.
“The spirit of the grant was to really address what some consider the ‘homework gap,’ which we know we’ve struggled with for a large portion of our student body,” said Scott Gutowski, chief information officer for Pittsburgh Public Schools.
Read more at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Public Schools in line for $250,000 grant to provide mobile hotspots to students