KUNA, Idaho — Idaho students will be learning from home for the rest of the school year due to the coronavirus, however, some students do not have the crucial resources they need for online learning – a laptop and an internet connection.
Idaho Business for Education launched the Community Activation Project to combat this issue, gathering unused laptops donated from the community for Idaho students.
According to Rod Gramer, president and CEO of Idaho Business for Education, IBE has seven teams spread across Idaho to facilitate CAP.
“We’ve organized seven teams around the state of IBE leaders and we’re going to try to work with these seven communities and surrounding school districts to gather these devices, sanitize them, wipe them of sensitive information, and get them to these students,” Gramer said.
The CAP teams are in Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene, Lewiston, Canyon County, Twin Falls, Pocatello, and Idaho Falls.
Gramer said it is fairly easy to donate a laptop to CAP.
”All they have to do is email those people, we’ll get them, pick them up, and have them delivered,” he said.
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IBE ran a CAP pilot in the Kuna School District before the official launch to make sure their vision for the program worked.
“To date, I believe we’re in the neighborhood of 100 devices being donated,” David Reinhart said, Kuna School District’s assistant superintendent. “Many of them will eventually be ready for use here in the school district.”
Kids may get devices from the program, but they would still need an internet connection for them to access their online learning tools.
“There are various ways we can do that. One is by putting hotspots on poles in places,” Gramer said. “The other one is this very innovative idea of putting Wi-Fi on school buses and then driving the school buses out to the neighborhoods where these kids are.”
Gramer said IBE has asked state officials to help conduct a superintendent survey to identify the areas where families don’t have internet access. He added the success of the program depends on individual Idaho communities.
“Search for unused devices, get them to us,” Gramer said. “We need to find financial resources to provide a connectivity plan. We can provide the teams, we can provide the infrastructure, but we need everybody’s help.”
Businesses in the Gem State are helping with the effort.
HP is providing the software to delete sensitive information from donated machines, and Sparklight provided 15 free wifi hotspots to their service areas last week, with plans to add 10 more this week.
For more information or to donate, visit the CAP website here.
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