The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced $53.4 million in funding for the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF), which provides funding for digital tools and services to support students.
“In today’s classroom, broadband connections and digital tools are the new pencils and notebooks, making them vital to students’ success. That’s why we’re pleased to announce another round of funding to help close the Homework Gap for students,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
This funding will benefit approximately 140,000 students nationwide, including students in Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The funding will support approximately 175 schools and school districts, four libraries and library systems, and two consortium.
Money from the Emergency Connectivity Fund can be used to support off-campus learning, such as nightly homework, and summer online learning programs. The FCC said its goal is to ensure students across the country have the necessary support to keep up with their education.
As part of its funding process, the ECP had three application windows that schools and libraries could apply under. This latest round of funding will go towards applications from the third application window.
To date, ECP funding has provided support to more than 18 million students, 11,500 schools, 1,065 libraries, and 128 consortia, and provided nearly 13 million connected devices and over 8 million broadband connections.
