nothin Schools Ramp Up Laptop, Wifi Access | New Haven Independent

Schools Ramp Up Laptop, Wifi Access

Thomas Breen photo

Career High School student Joshuwa Papalotzi picks up a laptop from Ron Atkinson.

Joshuwa Papalotzi picked up a laptop, a charger, and words of encouragement from staff at Career High School, as the city and the public school system hustle to ensure that every student is well equipped for an all-online start to the school year.

Papalotzi, a rising 11th grader at Career, took home that Dell laptop Tuesday morning from a New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) device giveaway and press conference held on the Orchard Street side of the Legion Avenue high school.


It’s different, and it’s just something we’ve all got to adjust ourselves to,” said Career truant officer Ron Atkinson as he handed a plastic bag filled with a laptop, a charger, and a warranty for the device to Papalotzi, and then advised the local high school student on how to log in at home.

We all just have to keep doing the work to educate our students.”

The first day of the school year is Thursday and, per the Board of Education’s votes this summer, all city public schools will spend the first 10 weeks of the school year with entirely online learning.

Outside the laptop giveaway at Career.

As Papalotzi and fellow Career students walked along a line of yellow and orange cones spaced out at six-foot intervals leading to the laptop giveaway, Superintendent Iline Tracey and Mayor Justin Elicker hosted a press conference announcing that the local school system has enough internet-accessible devices for all 21,000-plus public school students.

Those devices, a mix of Dell laptops for high school students, Chromebooks for elementary and middle school students, and iPads for the school system’s youngest learners, are available thanks to funding from the state and the federal CARES Act, as well as donations from the Dalio Foundation and Yale University, among other donors.

Mayor Elicker and Superintendent Tracey on Tuesday.

Tracey and Elicker said that the state is also funding 10,000 Comcast basic internet accounts and 3,000 Kajeet SmartSpot hotspot devices for public school families in need of internet access.

And on top of that, NHPS is in the process of installing 13 internet hotspots on various public school buildings around the city.

Each of those hubs should project free wifi up to two-and-a-half blocks away from their respective schools. The publicly-accessible, school-powered wifi hubs are currently set up at Career, Lincoln-Bassett Community School, Fair Haven School, the former Christopher Columbus Academy, and John S. Martinez School, and are slated to be installed in the coming weeks atop King-Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Hill-Central, John C. Daniels, Riverside, Betsy Ross, Truman, and the former Strong School on Orchard Street.

Tracey (pictured) said that, when she started out as interim superintendent earlier this year, one of her top goals to was to ensure that all roughly 21,000 students have access to devices and to the internet.

The dream is being fulfilled right now,” she said. I can safely say that we have a device for every child in New Haven Public Schools.”

Tracey said that she feels optimistic that online instruction will go more smoothly this fall than it did this spring, when the pandemic abruptly ended in-person classes in March and only around 30 percent of local public school students fully engaged with classwork for the rest of the semester.

This time around, she said, the school system has enough devices for all students, as well as a variety of free wifi initiatives that should bridge the internet gap for many families that do not currently have a reliable internet connection.

Plus, teachers will be using Google Suite this fall to do live instruction, which should provide for more engaging and interactive learning than the pre-recorded and asynchronous instruction that took place last spring. Last time we were a little scared to be going with Zoom because of Zoom bombing,” Tracey said. Google Suite is the safest place for our students right now.”

Tracey added that the school system is holding training for parents to help them set up their children’s remote classrooms and internet-accessible devices for the start of the school year. NHPS is also training paraprofessionals to help teachers provide a robust learning environment for our students.”

Elicker praised the various wifi enhancements — through the hubs on top of public schools, the free Comcast accounts, and the Kajeet home hotspots — as creating a system with a lot of redundancy,” so that families that may not be succeed in getting internet through one of those options can turn to another to make sure students are connected to their classes this fall.


Our commitment is to support our remote learning for as long as we need to, and then transition back into a hybrid and then full in-person mode” when it is safe to do so, said Asst. Superintendent Paul Whyte (pictured).

This is a transition time. … This is a huge change in how New Haven Public Schools does its education, but we’re moving full steam ahead.”

As he packed up his new laptop and headed back out to the Career parking lot, Papalotzi steeled himself for the start of the year.

I don’t like it,” he said about having classes entirely online. I like going to schools. It’s complicated to communicate with teachers” when all online.

Jahziel Martes, Lynoshka Veracruz, and Keyshalee Rivera

Fellow Career high school students Jahziel Martes, Lynoshka Veracruz, and Keyshalee Rivera had a different take on starting this fall all remote, after they picked up their laptops and prepared to drive home with their parents.

I understand” why the year is starting all online, Veracruz said. I don’t want to get my family sick.”

Watch Tuesday’s press conference in full below. Click here for more information about the start of the all-online school year.

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