More than 28,000 students in Chicago Public Schools will continue to have free home internet access through an extension of a pandemic-era city program.
Chicago Connected, launched in 2020, provides free broadband or hotspot services to low-income families. Roughly 60,000 CPS students have participated in the past five years, and the extension will cost about $2 million in city funds, the mayor’s office said.
The program was initially set to expire last summer, but has now twice been extended. No new families can currently enroll, but previously, any student who qualified for free or reduced-price meals was eligible.
Nearly 1 in 3 qualifying families reported having no internet access prior to the program, according to CPS.
“Every student deserves an equal opportunity to learn and succeed in the classroom, and access to internet shouldn’t stand in the way,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement.
Since the launch of Chicago Connected, nearly all of the city’s community areas with the largest drops in disconnection rates are on the South and West sides, according to the mayor’s office. A review of the program’s first year by advocacy group Kids First Chicago found that 93% of participating students were economically disadvantaged and nearly a third were English language learners.
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The initiative was initially a response to the shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some students, depending on grade level, participated in at-home learning for more than a year after the initial shutdown. At the time, $50 million was earmarked for the four-year program, funded through a mix of city funds and philanthropic grants.