How eligible Sacramento City Unified students can receive 6 months of free internet

The Sacramento City Unified School District and the city of Sacramento announced a partnership with Comcast to provide free internet access to thousands of eligible students in the area.

The partnership, called Sac City Kids Connect, will provide internet access to at least 6,000 families, helping close the digital divide for low-income families.

With its current program, Internet Essentials, Comcast is already providing more than 2,000 local families in the district with two months of free internet access. District Superintendent Jorge Aguilar said those agreements will transfer over to the new program in an effort to extend access to families in need.

Lorena Hernandez of Comcast California said the program is the first of its kind in the state. About 90 percent of the Internet Essentials’ 8 million participants were not connected to the internet before applying for the program. California has the most participants in the program, with more than 1 million recipients receiving free internet through Comcast. Nearly 165,000 low-income people have been connected in the greater Sacramento region, according to Hernandez.

Sacramento City Unified President Jessie Ryan said while most people assume rural families are the only ones experiencing connectivity issues, internet access is a concern for many low-income urban families as well.

In a virtual press conference Wednesday, Ryan called the program a milestone.

“This is about connecting students and families so that they don’t feel isolated and alone in these very difficult times,” she said.

“For so many of our high poverty students, they look forward to signing online every day and seeing their teacher’s face, seeing the faces of other caring adults like their principals, who will stop by and say hello in their virtual classrooms, and getting to share community with classmates that they aren’t able to come in contact with in person,” Ryan said. “But by virtue of just being able to hear a few words from their classmates everyday, it gives them a tremendous sense of safety and well being in very uncertain times.”

Comcast provides internet at a discounted rate of $9.95 per month. But district officials said that more than 6,600 students expressed a need for internet access. So the school district and city recognize that while Comcast’s price was discounted, it could be a barrier for many families in need.

“Our mission to meet our students’ academic, social and emotional needs didn’t end when schools closed,” Aguilar said. “Lack of internet access is a barrier, even during normal times. In these extraordinary times, this barrier becomes all the more evident for many of our students, but especially our most vulnerable.”

Families have until June 30 to sign up for the program. They will be provided with a code that waives the cost for the six-month period.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said this program is just the start of many more announcements that will aim at eliminating the digital divide for Sacramento residents.

“The gap that continues to exist in our community, especially in our low income community, is substantial,” he said.