How Oakland closed the digital divide for nearly all its students
| OAKLAND, Calif.
After schools went remote in 2020, Jessica Ramos spent hours that spring and summer sitting on a bench in front of her local Oakland Public Library branch in the vibrant and diverse Dimond District. Ms. Ramos would connect to the library鈥檚 Wi-Fi 鈥� sometimes on her cellphone, sometimes using her family鈥檚 only laptop 鈥� to complete assignments and submit essays or tests for her classes at Skyline High School.
Ms. Ramos, used to texting quickly, was able to do simple assignments online, so at first her schoolwork was very easy. Then came the five-page papers for her two AP classes. 鈥淚t was a hassle,鈥� she says.
鈥淲e have this huge digital divide that鈥檚 making it hard for [students] to get their education,鈥� she says.
Why We Wrote This
Recent success in closing the digital divide in Oakland, California, schools suggests what a partnership approach can achieve.
At the start of the pandemic, only , and 25% of all students, in Oakland鈥檚 public schools had devices at home and a strong internet connection. David Silver, the director of education for the mayor鈥檚 office, says people talked about the digital divide, but there had never been enough energy to tackle it. Once the pandemic hit, suddenly everyone was paying attention, says Mr. Silver, a former Oakland public school teacher and principal.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have a computer, you don鈥檛 have internet, you can鈥檛 even access distance learning,鈥� Mr. Silver says. 鈥淭he 50,000 kids that are in Oakland public schools cannot actually go to school if they don鈥檛 have internet and computers. We need to change that.鈥�
Now, two years into the pandemic, Oakland has been able to connect 98% of all students听in the district.听As of February, the city had provided nearly 36,000 laptops and more than 11,500 hot spots to low-income public school students. While some students remain unconnected, Oakland鈥檚 effort has emerged as an example of how to tackle a citywide digital divide.听
鈥淲e were using the crisis as an opportunity to address a moral wrong that needs to be changed forever, not just during the pandemic,鈥� Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 afford not to.鈥�
City leaders, including Mayor Schaaf, say a partnership among the district, the mayor鈥檚 office, the Oakland Public Education Fund, the nonprofit Tech Exchange, Oakland Promise, and other community-based organizations is behind Oakland鈥檚 success. Oakland鈥檚 partnership, known as , launched in May 2020. The ambitious goal: close the city鈥檚 digital divide for good by providing all K-12 public school students in Oakland with a computer they could keep, a reliable internet connection, and ongoing, multicultural tech support in languages families use.
鈥淲e [didn鈥檛] want this to be a band-aid fix,鈥� says Jordan Mickens, a Leadership for Educational Equity public policy fellow who served as #OaklandUndivided鈥檚 project manager until August 2021.
While most schools across the country are fully back in person, students to struggle to complete homework assignments or participate in remote learning because they lack adequate internet service and access to a computer at home 鈥� a phenomenon commonly referred to as the 鈥渉omework gap.鈥� According to a 2021 from the think tank New America, from low-income families don鈥檛 have a computer at home, while 1 in 7 lack access to broadband internet.
鈥淭he homework gap isn鈥檛 new. It鈥檚 just been exacerbated by the pandemic,鈥� says Rebeca Shackleford, the director of federal government relations at All4Ed, an education advocacy nonprofit. 鈥淭here鈥檚 kids who sit in McDonald鈥檚 parking lots to be able to do their homework, and that鈥檚 pretty tragic.鈥�
Technology as a lifeline
Before the pandemic, the digital divide was often considered . But the to get students online during COVID-19 school closures made clear the issue affects Americans living in all kinds of places. A recent study from EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit that works with school districts to help close the digital divide, found that was the largest contributing factor.
Though only about听40 miles north of Silicon Valley, home to technology giants such as Google and Apple, Oakland was deeply underconnected when the pandemic shuttered its schools. When the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) shut down, its 83 district-run schools and 33 charter schools served more than 49,000 students. Kyla Johnson-Trammell, Oakland鈥檚 superintendent, says the first couple of months of the pandemic were a scramble.
鈥淚t was all hands on deck. We piecemealed as much as we could in March and April 2020,鈥� she says. Still, she added, there were 鈥渏ust so many stories of kids using their cellphones to complete assignments, to research, or having to figure out how to get to public libraries in order to access devices.鈥�
The district handed out its existing stockpile of loaner devices and hot spots to as many students as possible, says Preston Thomas, OUSD鈥檚 chief systems and services officer.
Many of the devices were already four to five years old. Because the district had been under significant financial pressures for the five years prior to the pandemic, 鈥渨e hadn鈥檛 really invested in our infrastructure around technology,鈥�听Mr. Thomas says.
Jen Bender is an instructional teacher leader and technology coordinator at Castlemont High School in a historically underresourced neighborhood in East Oakland. Helping the school with its technology needs had been only a small part of her job. Starting in April 2020, Ms. Bender stepped in as the school鈥檚 distance learning lead, and finding devices for students became her full-time role.
In the beginning, schools asked students to come get a device if they didn鈥檛 have one. But public transportation was disrupted as the state began to shelter in place, and some students and parents had no way to get to school. Other students鈥� family members were essential workers who couldn鈥檛 make it to school during the school day. The newcomers who didn鈥檛 speak English were the hardest to reach.
鈥淲e realized we had to start really targeting families,鈥� Ms. Bender says. The district pulled in community workers who spoke Spanish and Mam, a Mayan language, and, she says, 鈥渉ad them make individual phone calls to families to get them to come in and pick up those devices.鈥�
As May arrived, district administrators realized that relying on distance learning leads in each school听to understand what was happening on the ground was insufficient,听Mr. Thomas says. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have a centralized way to track devices for students,鈥� he says. 鈥淟ike, we had no idea. Every school had their individual Google spreadsheet, and there wasn鈥檛 a unifying place where any of us could look.鈥�
Meantime, Dr. Johnson-Trammell,听the superintendent, and Mayor Schaaf had several conversations about how to tackle technology access and connectivity. As the pandemic unfolded, city officials also saw how deeply the lack of technology access impacted all of Oakland. Almost every resource and piece of information about COVID-19, including where to get food and how to apply for unemployment benefits, was being provided digitally.
鈥淎ll the information was on the internet. And I imagined, for a minute, what a mother must feel like who didn鈥檛 have an internet connection or a computer,鈥� Mayor Schaaf says. 鈥淚t was so much bigger than just education. It was literally survival for Oakland families. Technology was the lifeline to information.鈥�
鈥淚 think I got it! I think I got the computer.鈥�
Mr. Mickens, who spent his first year as a teacher at Castlemont High School in 2014, jumped at the opportunity in June 2020 to run the new #OaklandUndivided initiative to close the digital divide.
The first thing the group did, Mr. Mickens says, was to start tracking the number of public school students who already had a device and internet service, and those who didn鈥檛. By May 2021, the group had accounted for roughly 70% of all Oakland public school students through its听Tech Check听survey. Going in, the #OaklandUndivided team had anticipated about 25,000 students would need devices, internet, or both, based on the earlier school surveys and census data. The Tech Check survey 鈥渙pened our eyes,鈥� Mr. Mickens says.
Based on the survey results, #OaklandUndivided estimated that 75% of K-12 public school students, or almost 40,000, were either disconnected or underconnected, with inadequate internet access.
Meanwhile, the #OaklandUndivided leadership team, made up of staff employed by multiple agencies in the partnership, met weekly and launched a fundraising campaign with a goal of $12.5 million to provide the initial devices and hot spots. The campaign was able to bring in big donors like Twitter听co-founder and then-CEO Jack Dorsey, who听 to help meet the goal.
The campaign relied on Tech Exchange, an Oakland-based nonprofit that has been working on closing the city鈥檚 digital divide for more than two decades, to purchase devices and hot spots.
By March 16, 2021 鈥� a year after school closures in Oakland 鈥� the partnership had handed out 25,000 Chromebooks to low-income students.
Mr. Mickens says distributing the devices 鈥� which students could keep permanently 鈥� was an experience he will never forget. When he taught at Castlemont in 2014, the school had only one Chromebook cart. 鈥淭o go from that, to now giving every student their own computer 鈥� was incredible to be a part of,鈥� he says.
The Oakland Reach, a parent-led advocacy group that works with underserved communities, joined the partnership along with several other community-based groups to reach more families.
Early in the pandemic, Bernadette Fenceroy, who has four children in Oakland public schools, relied on one loaner device and a hot spot that worked sporadically. No one got much learning done, she says.
鈥淚t is hard when you have some kids that are on the phone and you can鈥檛 get all your information,鈥� Ms. Fenceroy says. When a child has a tutoring session, she notes, 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do it on your phone and have to do it on a laptop or a desktop.鈥�
Ms. Fenceroy took the Tech Check survey to see if her family qualified for free devices after hearing about it from Oakland Reach.
When she finally got the call in May 2021 saying her kids鈥� permanent laptops were ready to be picked up, she almost couldn鈥檛 believe it. She took a picture of the device and called her Oakland Reach contact: 鈥淚 think I got it! I think I got the computer.鈥�
Although her kids have devices now, Ms. Fenceroy hopes the district and #OaklandUndivided鈥檚 members don鈥檛 鈥渏ust drop the ball,鈥� she says. She wants them to stay in touch, make sure the devices are working, and let parents know who to call for help if they鈥檙e not.
An evolving approach
The #OaklandUndivided project has evolved since its inception. With an influx of federal funding available to schools in response to the pandemic, Oakland is using the opportunity to strengthen the program. The district received nearly $130 million from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund, in addition to money from the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF), a federal program that has helped schools and libraries provide internet access and connected devices to students and educators during the pandemic.
But those federal funds come with parameters. All the #OaklandUndivided devices handed out in the early days of the pandemic were permanent gifts to families; officials say this was important because a district-managed device has restrictions on its use. A permanent device could be useful to parents trying to access online resources or pursuing their own educations, or it could follow a student on to college.
The federal ESSER and ECF programs require that any device purchased be owned by the school or the district. So, since Aug. 1, 2021, all the #OaklandUndivided devices going out have been loaners. While the district-lent devices will stay with the student for up to five years, the #OaklandUndivided initiative is still trying to keep its promise of providing permanent devices.
鈥淩ecognizing the importance of students owning a computer, we are working with Tech Exchange this year to distribute 4,800 refurbished computers to families who have no owned computer,鈥� says Patrick Messac, the current #OaklandUndivided project manager.
The federal funding itself isn鈥檛 permanent. The ECF funding, which was originally set to expire this June, has recently been extended until June 30, 2023. The ESSER funds expire in 2024. Kyleigh Nevis, the devices and operations lead for #OaklandUndivided and OUSD, says the Oakland program is planning for the future and may, for example, switch students on hot-spot plans over to T-Mobile鈥檚 Project 10Million, a national program providing free internet to underserved student households.
As of January, the #OaklandUndivided team says, 35,960 families of public school students had received a Chromebook or hot spot or both. Two percent of low-income students remain unconnected.听
For those still 鈥渕issing,鈥� the district has made a push this year to focus on what it calls high-priority students: those most at risk and with the greatest need, and whom the program still hasn鈥檛 been able to reach.
鈥淲e鈥檙e just trying to find creative solutions to reach these hardest-to-reach students,鈥� Mr. Messac says. As of December, the district had surveyed 6,953 students and handed out an additional 5,835 Chromebooks.
Truancy remains one of the main barriers in reaching out to those missing students, Mr. Messac says. The Oakland district is also facing , and John Sasaki, director of communications for OUSD, says it plans to close two schools. Although #OaklandUndivided is a separate program run in partnership with the city that doesn鈥檛 rely entirely on funding from the district, the closings could complicate efforts down the road to reach out to students who aren鈥檛 connected yet. Mr. Messac says the program is working with the district to ensure that if students at the impacted school sites need digital access, those resources will be provided.
Ms. Ramos 鈥� now a freshman at the University of California, Berkeley, which provided her with a new laptop 鈥� sits on the #OaklandUndivided leadership committee. She wants other cities to use #OaklandUndivided鈥檚 model and expand on it to tackle the homework gap. The pandemic brought 鈥渁 light to all these problems that need to be solved,鈥� she says.
In November, EducationSuperHighway announced that Oakland was the听 for its nationwide initiative to close the affordability gap. In partnership with #OaklandUndivided, EducationSuperHighway is deploying free Wi-Fi in low-income apartment buildings.
鈥淥akland has done a terrific job creating a public-private partnership to connect their unconnected,鈥� says Evan Marwell, EducationSuperHighway鈥檚 CEO. 鈥淭hat was really an effective thing for a lot of students. It hasn鈥檛 been a perfect solution, but was a best-in-class effort [from] around the country.鈥�
This story about 听was produced by听, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on听inequality and innovation in education.
