The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has committed nearly $7 million in new funding through the Emergency Connectivity Fund Program, which provides digital tools and services to support students nationwide.
“Now that Labor Day has come and gone and schools are back in session, students everywhere need access to broadband connections and digital tools to succeed. That’s why we’re pleased to announce another round of funding to help close the Homework Gap for students headed back to class,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
This round of funding will benefit roughly 50,000 students, including students in California, Colorado, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The funding will support approximately 110 schools and school districts, nine libraries and library systems, and one consortium.
Emergency Connectivity Funding can be used to support off-campus learning, such as nightly homework, and summer online learning programs. To date, the funding has supported approximately 18 million students, 11,220 schools, 1050 libraries, and 120 consortia, and provided nearly 13 million connected devices and over eight million broadband connections.
As part of its funding process, the ECP had three application windows that schools and libraries can apply under. This latest round of funding will go towards applications from the third application window.
