City Forward Collective is working to eliminate the biggest barrier to student learning during the pandemic: lack of internet access

Thousands of Milwaukee children are still without reliable internet access – even as virtual classes begin. In the words of Principal Judith Parker at Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy:

“A lack of access to WiFi is like not having a seat in a classroom.”

You can help overcome this barrier to learning.

When you give $200 to our Internet Access Fund, a local school will match your investment to provide one year of access to a student in need.

An estimated 20% of Milwaukee students currently live in homes without an internet connection. It is now a certainty that these students will spend at least a portion of the school year learning from home, as school buildings remain closed against the ongoing pandemic.

Disparities in internet access among students from low-income households widen our city’s existing opportunity gaps and inequities.

To eliminate this barrier, City Forward Collective has created the Internet Access Fund, a two-phase effort to raise $950,000 to connect more than 5,000 students in public charter and private schools. This compliments the work of the MPS Foundation which has raised funds to provide internet access to MPS students.

DONOR IMPACT

All donations to the Internet Access Fund will go directly to the costs of securing reliable internet access for Milwaukee students.

In Phase 1, City Forward Collective will raise $450,000 to provide internet hotspots for 2,240 students.

For every $200 donors invest, a school will match the donation to provide a mobile hotspot and 12 months of internet service to a student in need. City Forward Collective is pooling hotspot purchases, device management, and internet service contracts to maximize efficiency and connect as many students as possible.

City Forward Collective researched all the possible options for providing internet access to students, and identified mobile hotspots as the best method. These devices can travel with students to a variety of locations, solving many of the problems encountered by families last spring as they tried to access virtual learning.

In Phase 2, City Forward Collective will raise an additional $500,000. These funds will be matched by schools to cover documented expenses incurred by schools to provide students with home internet.

Milwaukee children don’t have time to wait

When schools closed in March, some quickly mobilized to provide students with home-based learning opportunities. Others wanted to do this, but lacked the resources to manage the transition. Still others hoped the crisis would soon end, and went on an extended spring break. The result is that today, Milwaukee students – already behind their peers nationally – are in danger of falling even further behind this fall.

Each donation empowers a Milwaukee child to join her classmates and continue moving forward.

PART OF A HOLISTIC RESPONSE

In addition to the creation of this fund, City Forward Collective is providing a range of supports to school leaders, educators, and families as they face the COVID-19 crisis.

• Established the COVID-19 School Support Fund, a $750,000 pool of resources to support schools as they serve students during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

• Awarded 14 planning grants to schools and school networks to support their reopening planning for the 2020-21 school year

• Designed a School Reopening Planning Tool, which incorporated the best thinking of public health and education experts from around the country

• Hosted a series of nine workshops for school teams creating reopening plans, providing support to more than 75 schools

• Worked closely with the City of Milwaukee Health Department to support the development of criteria and a checklist to assess schools’ readiness to reopen and ability to serve students virtually

• Collected resources to share with families, school leaders, and classroom teachers, and launched a comprehensive, web-based resource

• Spotlighted schools with the strongest responses to COVID-19 to serve as proof of what is possible

• Established regular Virtual Collaboratives with hundreds of school leaders and educators to share best practices and resources, and to provide a collegial space for them to navigate change management 

• Tracked state and federal COVID-19 recovery/stimulus legislation to understand the impact on schools and to inform our policy/advocacy work to ensure these new one-time fiscal resources are allocated equitably across all school sectors

OTHER WAYS TO GIVE

If you prefer to make a donation by check, please send it payable to “City Forward Collective, Inc.” at: City Forward Collective; 111 W. Pleasant St., Suite 101; Milwaukee, WI 53212

If you’d like to discuss making a gift of appreciated assets, a legacy gift, or a bequest, please contact us at (414) 988-5359 or at info@cityforwardcollective.org.