[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text animation=”slideInLeft”]The City of Covington worked throughout 2020 to provide devices and connections for students in the Covington Independent School District. When the pandemic hit, nearly 60 percent of families lacked regular internet access. The city government moved quickly to budget $2.5 million from federal pandemic aid to expand internet access across Covington and initiate partnerships to provide 1,900 free computers to families with young children.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text animation=”slideInLeft” animation_delay=”.2″]\u201cWe believe Internet access is as much of an infrastructure issue as water and sewer,\u201d said Covington Mayor Joe Meyer. “We\u2019ve helped the schools and students, but we\u2019ve also helped the broader community.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text animation=”slideInLeft” animation_delay=”.4″]The Covington Connect program involved the school district, local housing authority, Cincinnati Bell, and a Texas charity assuring free connections to reach 80 percent of students and families as well as the free computers. With additional hotspots, Glenn O. Swing Elementary Principal Sherry Lindberg said that all students had computers and consistent connections by December.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text animation=”slideInLeft” animation_delay=”.6″]Lindberg said that these online connections with families and the community will be a greater asset after the pandemic, as will teachers\u2019 new technology skills.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text animation=”slideInLeft”]\u201cOur teachers have been phenomenal \u2014 and they\u2019ve had to learn an entirely new way to teach,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is the hardest work we\u2019ve ever done.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text animation=”slideInLeft”]The City of Covington worked throughout 2020 to provide devices and connections for students in the Covington Independent School District. When the pandemic hit, nearly 60 percent of families lacked regular internet access. The city government moved quickly to budget $2.5 million from federal pandemic aid to expand internet access across Covington and initiate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"passster_activate_protection":false,"passster_protect_child_pages":"","passster_protection_type":"password","passster_password":"","passster_activate_overwrite_defaults":"","passster_headline":"","passster_instruction":"","passster_placeholder":"","passster_button":"","passster_id":"","passster_activate_misc_settings":"","passster_redirect_url":"","passster_hide":"no","passster_area_shortcode":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-learning-through-covid"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6077,"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5490\/revisions\/6077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prichard-backup.com\/July\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}