HARLINGEN — Digital devices.
They’ve taken up residence in classrooms across the Harlingen school district as iPad, iPhones and wireless connections, putting students in touch with the world far beyond their borders.
Now the school district is empowering students with a new initiative called the Sprint 1Million Project, which will provide 300 devices per year for selected freshmen.
They’ll be able to keep the same assigned device in their possession throughout the four years of high school and use them at home.
“We are super excited about being selected to participate in the Sprint 1Million Project,” said Superintendent Art Cavazos.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to obtain devices and service for hundreds of ninth-grade students at HCISD. We thank Sprint for taking on this mission to reach students across the country that lack home Internet access.”
The 1Million Project was created by Sprint and the Sprint Foundation to help eliminate the “Homework Gap” that puts low-income students at a major disadvantage because they don’t have home access to the Internet.
Their goal is to reach one million students across the nation.
Veronica Kortan, director of staff development, hailed the new program.
“We have never done anything like this before,” Kortan said. “It’s going to benefit students that wouldn’t have access to these devices. They’ll have Internet at home.”
Kortan said the district’s school children have enjoyed a great deal of success with the “BYOD” — Bring Your Own Device program. Through this program, students have been able to use their own digital devices under controlled circumstances to do class work.
The Sprint program will provide free mobile devices each year for five years to 300 freshmen who qualify. This will ultimately connect 1,500 freshmen with devices and wireless service.
The Harlingen school district did a survey this past school year to determine which students were the most qualified for the program.
“We sent out a survey with our eighth-grade students to identify students who do not have Internet service at home,” said Jessica Hruska, special projects and grants specialist.
The program will address the needs of select ninth-graders attending Dr. Abraham P. Cano Freshman Academy, Early College High School and Harlingen School of Health Professions.
