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Google Partners With State to Offer Free Wi-Fi, Chromebooks to Students

Google will help California make "distance learning" a reality as state and education officials confront the monumental task of teaching millions of students remotely during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a call to completely close the digital divide.

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Calling it “self-evident that we should not prepare to bring our children back into the school system” at this stage of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a partnership Wednesday with Google that he said should smooth the way for “distance learning.”

Google will provide “100,000 points of access to improve Wi-Fi and broadband capacity,” Newsom said, characterizing it as “not only access to the Internet but quality access to the Internet.” The technology company will also provide a “minimum three months' free access to high quality … access to broadband throughout the state of California,” and 4,000 Chromebooks, the governor said during noontime, hour-long remarks available on Twitter.

“Those 100,000 points will help us substantially address the digital divide issues, the rural issues, the equity issues that are at play even in the best of times but substantively are highlighted in these more difficult times,” Newsom said, referring to it as an “enhancement that came just at the right time.”

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc., said via Twitter that the company is proud “to help bridge the digital divide in our home state.” The Chromebooks, he added, will go to “California students in greatest need and free Wi-Fi to 100,000 rural households during the #COVID19 crisis to make distance learning more accessible.”

The Chromebooks will be donated, and Google will “fund the use of 100,000 donated mobile hotspots to provide free and unlimited high-speed Internet connectivity for the remainder of the school year.” The California Department of Education will distribute the resources, “prioritizing rural communities.”

Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the state board of education, praised school districts statewide for “assertively getting out there purchasing and getting contributions of tens of thousands of hot spots and devices to do digital learning wherever possible.” When school closures began, she said, roughly 20 percent of the state’s students had no digital connectivity at home — a number that has already likely been more than halved.

“I’m hopeful by the time we resume school-based instruction, we will in fact have closed that digital gap and taught a lot of people, both kids and teachers and parents, how to engage in learning online,” she said.

Newsom issued a call for partners to fill the remaining void around digital connectivity. A state survey that informed a vulnerability map revealed that California would need 162,013 hot spots to eliminate the digital divide as it pertains to broadband access, he said, noting that officials may be “actually closer than even that survey may suggest” to erasing the inequity.

“We need more Googles,” said the governor, telling those who want to help to “please contact us and we will make sure that you’re highlighted and we’ll make sure that your good work is distributed throughout the state of California.”

Theo Douglas is Assistant Managing Editor of Industry Insider — California.