Not all students have internet for their school work. Read Fort Worth is here to help.
Fort Worth students who haven’t had an internet connection to access their online classes will soon have a wireless hot spot to help them out.
The Fort Worth Independent School District and its partner Read Fort Worth are providing the hot spots to students identified through a survey who don’t have internet access.
The school district will distribute around 6,000 hot spots.
The outbreak of coronavirus in Texas and Tarrant County led to 80,000 students in Fort Worth’s school district learning at home.
Read Fort Worth, which usually focuses on making sure third-grade students can read at grade level, is shifting its focus during the coronavirus pandemic to raise money for the effort. And the organization already has its first donor: Facebook, which has a data center in Fort Worth.
The social media giant has donated $500,000 to provide the wireless hot spots.
Read Fort Worth needs the community’s help to raise the remaining $350,000, Read Fort Worth Communications and Marketing Consultant Art Garcia said. Donations can be made online at readfortworth.org/be-a-donor/
The campaign, Devices & Resources to Impact Virtual Education (or DRIVE), will provide a year of internet access through AT&T. Garcia said the hope is to provide the tools students need to continue their education away from the physical classroom.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 1:16 PM.