DeKalb County School District’s (DCSD) Digital Dreamers initiative is bringing laptops and wireless access to our students, staff and schools beginning this fall. Check out the video below to get the scoop on this important effort!

[youtube id=”lDbzP9xYBTU” width=”600″ height=”350″ autoplay=”no” api_params=”&rel=0″ class=””][/youtube]

Be sure to watch the live stream of PDS-TV 24 at www.dekalbschoolsga.org/pds-tv24!

Nearly 300 students at Cedar Grove High School received mobile wireless hotspots from Sprint in support of the district’s Digital Dreamer initiative. 

DeKalb County School District (DCSD) Superintendent/CEO R. Stephen Green was joined by Brian Miller, Sprint Region President for Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama, and a host of DCSD Instructional Staff in the school’s media room as students activated their units. 

Students will be able to take the hotspots off campus and link up to five devices per unit. The hotspots, equipped with safeguards to protect students online, directly support DCSD’s Digital Dreamers initiative to increase students’ technological footprint and prepare them to be globally competitive citizens. 

“Our goal is to create student access any time, any place, anywhere,” Green said while standing in the busy media room. “And through Digital Dreamers and partnerships such as this one, we will do just that.”  

Cedar Grove students are among the first of 180,000 high school students nationwide to receive free mobile devices and wireless service this year as part of Sprint’s 1Million Project. Sprint will build on this initial distribution to provide additional units and connectivity to 25,000 high school students. 

Research shows that 5 million U.S. families with school-aged children do not have internet access at home, yet 70 percent of teachers assign homework that requires web access. This creates a “Homework Gap” that puts these students at a disadvantage academically. 

“About 25 percent of students in urban school districts do not presently have access any time, any place, anywhere,” Green said. “Knowing this, our district is taking proactive measures to close that gap. Even within the confines of their homes, our students will have access to the world. Your ZIP code should not limit your connectivity, and at DeKalb County School District, we are committed to ensuring that it does not.” 

DCSD is embarking on “Digital Dreamers,” a two-year effort to provide middle and high school students with a laptop that can be used both on and off campus in their studies. This fall, middle and high school students will be provided Chromebooks that will provide a gateway to connect to the internet and the district’s online learning resources. Eligible and qualified students will receive mobile hotspots provided by Sprint through its “1 Million Project.” In the future, the Digital Dreamers project will be expanded to DCSD elementary schools. Please check out the flyer below for more information.