STRONG SIGNAL
CITY OKs WI-FI FOR SHELTERS AFTER OUTRAGE
The city plans to install Wi-Fi in city-run homeless shelters after the Daily News highlighted issues homeless students are having accessing the internet to attend their remote learning classes.
Mayor de Blasio made the announcement Monday, following a News front page story that detailed threats from school administrators and truancy officers some students have received after they missed classes due to internet connectivity issues.
“The instruction I have given to the Law Department and to Social Services is to ensure that every shelter gets Wi-Fi, to send teams out to literally go shelter by shelter and simply ensure not just for that student, but for the whole shelter, Wi-Fi is in place. We’ve got to stop this and make sure everyone has what they need,” de Blasio said at a press conference Monday.
After the press conference, de Blasio spokeswoman Avery Cohen said the city would target the 200 family shelters in the city’s 450-shelter system. “Contracts are being finalized, and we’ll share additional information soon,” she stated in an email.
The announcement comes after The News reported last week that students at numerous family shelters across the city were having trouble getting into their remote classes, even after the Education Department switched cell service providers from T-Mobile to Verizon on some of the iPads they gave out to help with the issue.
But because some of the shelters are cellular data dead zones, students still could not access the internet and get into class.
A simple — though potentially expensive — fix to the problem is to put Wi-Fi in city shelters, advocates and parents argued.
“This is what we’ve asked for all along, now we need to ensure that the service is provided in a way that is effective and ensures that everyone can get online,” said Susan Horwitz, the supervising attorney for the Education Law Project at the Legal Aid Society.
The city also did not immediately provide a timeline for the installation of Wi-Fi.
O’Brien Morris, whose son, Aaron Morris, has struggled to get into his classes due to internet issues at the Albemarle Family Residence in Flatbush, said he hopes the city can get the Wi-Fi installed quickly.
“It’s great they’re going to put something in where there’s Wi-Fi for all, but until then there will be children affected by not having access to the internet,” Morris told The News Monday.
Students and their families have also had to deal with threats from administrators and truancy officers when they miss class due to internet issues, The News reported Monday.
One student who missed class due to internet issues in a Manhattan homeless shelter had a truancy officer call her mother and demand an explanation for why the child missed classes — even though the mom had been working tirelessly to get her daughter online.
Another mother was called by a school vice principal who threatened to involve the Administration for Child Services if the student continued to miss school.
De Blasio said Monday that no student whose family is working to get them online and in-class should be targeted with threats of involvement by ACS.
“We all understand it’s hard to have the same kind of communication when people are not in person, but if a family reports a technology problem, clearly that means they’re trying to solve the problem,” de Blasio said at the press conference. “If a family is trying to solve the problem we should be working with them.”