A number of New York state senators have introduced a bill to provide free broadband to every student and school in the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Democratic state Senator Shelley Mayer stood with other state senators and educators outside the Southern BOCES in Valhalla in Westchester County to announce the E-LEARN, or E-Let's Expand Access to Remote Learning Now Act, to start to address the “digital divide” that was already a problem for low-income and minority students and districts throughout New York.
"Now in the face of the COVID pandemic, every child, whether in full remote, hybrid or even in-school learning, must have quality broadband in order to be educated,” Mayer says. “You simply cannot learn without it. You can’t do homework without it, and yet too many of our students don’t have it.”
Mayer, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, says the bill has more than 23 co-sponsors.