Texas is known for its vastness. A state filled with densely populated, skyscraper-lined cities and rural towns situated among open plains and desert mountains. But this alluring vastness is not without problems. In a state as large and diverse as Texas, getting—and staying—connected is key, but studies have shown that many Texans lack reliable devices and internet connectivity at home. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these issues, especially for children. 

The nonprofit Common Sense conducted a report about the nation’s digital divide, especially in light of distance learning, and found that Texas has the greatest number of kids who lack reliable broadband access at home: 34%, or 1.8 million, of the state’s public K-12 students do not have adequate connectivity, and 25% do not have an adequate device, such as a laptop or computer. The internet and device inequities have not gone unnoticed by Texas policymakers. In September, a bipartisan group of 88 state lawmakers sent a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott stating that Texas is “well overdue for a state broadband plan” and that the issue should be addressed immediately. 

In the meantime, countless individuals and organizations are working tirelessly to close the gap as much as they can. 

Distributing Devices 
Houston-based organization Comp-U-Dopt began in 2007 as a way to keep lightly used corporate computers out of landfills or storage by putting them into the hands of students and their families. According to Colin Dempsey, executive director of Comp-U-Dopt’s Houston/Galveston office, in a normal, pre-pandemic month, the organization would see about 100 visitors to its website, and they had two locations in Houston and Galveston. Since March 2020, Comp-U-Dopt has expanded to seven more cities, three of which are in Texas, and page views have skyrocketed to over 160,000. On March 18, Dempsey set up the Comp-U-Dopt website for lottery submissions, and 48 hours later, more than 20,000 families had applied for a computer. 

“We see the digital divide as a kind of three-legged stool,” Dempsey explains. “The first one is the hardware. Do kids have access to the actual computer or device that they need? The next part is connectivity. So, internet access. And we consider that reliable, high-speed internet access. Then the third is digital awareness or digital literacy—having the ability to use that computer in a meaningful way and it not just be a paperweight on your desk. We see our role as an organization to solve two of those, the hardware piece and the education piece, knowing that a lot of our families are making the decision, even now, between rent and food.” 

Comp-U-Dopt partnered with communities and school districts to hand out its first 5,000 computers when the pandemic hit and now operates using a lottery system. Families selected to receive a device are invited to RSVP via text message. On distribution day, Comp-U-Dopt employees place a computer in their cars, and the families go on their way. Because these devices are for families to keep, the organization includes a manual, how-to videos, tech support, and a two-year warranty with each distribution. 

“The device is gently used, but that doesn’t mean that kids should be getting a less-than machine or one that isn’t working for them, which is another issue about equity,” Dempsey says. “Just because it’s a machine they got free of charge doesn’t mean that it should be less than or not be able to do the things that they need to do in order to stay connected.” 

Texas school districts are also scrambling to get devices into the hands of students. The state contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus money to subsidize bulk orders of computers, hot spots, and iPads for school districts. By mid-August, Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) Operation Connectivity program had already ordered 756,000 devices and 310,000 hot spots for more than half of Texas school districts, though nationwide supplier backlogs mean some orders may take 14 weeks to arrive. 

San Elizario ISD, located on the U.S.-Mexico border outside of El Paso, was able to work with El Paso County through Operation Connectivity to order devices in bulk. 

“When partnerships like that exist, our children win,” says San Elizario ISD Superintendent Jeannie Meza-Chavez, Ph.D. “As a small district in a rural area next to the border, it’s our responsibility to look at ways to try to fill in those gaps for our students. Our parents want what’s best for their kids.” 

Meza-Chavez says it’s been “one adjustment after another.” The district spent its spring break making hardcopy instruction packets for students until devices would be ready. It also entered into an agreement with the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank to ensure its food pantry remained stocked. Meza-Chavez recalls seeing her students in the car line with their grandparents because their parents were at work. As the students waited to pick up their box of food, they would use their grandparent’s cell phone to try to connect to their lessons. 

“How great is the need that we have families who are in the pantry line, and the kids are trying to get their schooling done from the cell phone?” Meza-Chavez says. “They won’t skip out on going to the pantry line, but they want their kids to continue to get an education. That’s their reality. We see them, we see the struggles they have, and we are trying to do our part as a district.” 

Dempsey, too, has seen how access to technology can impact a family. 

“We’ve heard from families that this has been their lifeline; it’s more than just distance learning,” Dempsey says. “It’s how they’re getting the pandemic EBT benefits, how they’re applying for jobs, or how some people are showing up to court for evictions where the courts are closed and you need to Zoom in—and if you don’t show up, you lose your house. It really has become the portal for everything.” 

But distributing devices is only one piece of the puzzle. 

Handing Out Hot Spots 
During the first week of school, in early August, Meza-Chavez’s technology director, Horacio Hernandez, took her to students’ homes to show her what was happening. Although the district had finally been able to distribute devices, connectivity issues had begun cropping up. 

“He kept explaining to me what was happening, and we want to make sure all our kids are receiving what they are entitled to, so we went out to visit these houses where they were having trouble with internet,” Meza-Chavez recalls. “We had done our part—we had provided the device—and we just weren’t understanding why they weren’t connected, and that’s where we were exposed to the reality of things. We had multi-generational families living in one home. We had mothers who told us they can’t even connect, and it was a proximity of their home to Mexico [where the signal is often stronger, and the families on the U.S. side struggle to find internet service providers who can reach them].” 

San Elizario ISD made plans to reopen its schools in phases, starting September 8 with the students who were having connectivity issues. While acknowledging that entities such as TEA have helped the district dole out devices and hot spots, Meza-Chavez laments the lack of infrastructure, the fact that the state is still talking about STAAR tests for the year, and the consequences it has on her students. 

“These are students who live here in the United States, and I have an issue when we are being told by the state that ‘you’re going to test,’” she says. “We need to be sure there is a relationship between the powers that be in Texas with the children in Texas. There needs to be a commitment that says, regardless of where you live, the infrastructure won’t fail you.” 

The city of Dallas is no stranger to the infrastructure issue that afflicts Meza-Chavez’s community in San Elizario. Dallas ranks among the worst-connected cities of its size in the United States. Before COVID-19 was on anyone’s mind in 2019, Dallas city officials had already approved a plan brought forth by Jo Giudice, director of Dallas Public Libraries, that gave the library 900 hot spots for community use. The plan to roll out these hot spots was ready to deploy March 2—a week later, the library closed its building due to the pandemic. 

“At that point, all but 150 had been picked up by customers, so we brought the 150 down to Central and mailed them out,” Giudice explains. “By mid-March, all 900 were out in the community. When we figured out it was going to be a while before we would be open again, we kept extending the due dates. Those folks ending up keeping those hot spots through August.” 

As Dallas prepared for the next budget year, Giudice says an additional 2,100 hot spots were approved that will begin to circulate in the next few months. Furthermore, through a grant with AT&T and Cisco, four Dallas Public Library system parking lots are now hot spots, extending the Wi-Fi from the building—similar to school districts manning their buses with routers and parking them in neighborhoods. Although these actions made a positive difference quickly, Giudice acknowledges they are not long-term solutions. 

“The library was able to offer an immediate solution because we knew how to distribute the hot spots, just like we do books,” she says. “It’s not an ideal solution, we quickly admitted. This is a stopgap to help people connect right now. 

“People are making tough choices. Whether they may have lost a job or been furloughed or cut back, they are making tough choices: How do I feed my family? How do I pay to connect? Internet is something they let go of over feeding their kids. We’re a service industry, and the library prides itself on being flexible and nimble based on what the public needs, and that’s what we’re trying to do now.” 

The pandemic has seared certain images into our collective memories: people sitting outside Taco Bells just to get a signal, school buses stationed in residential streets bringing Wi-Fi to families. These images shine a glaring spotlight on preexisting inequities. 

“There are tons of gaps the pandemic has revealed,” Meza-Chavez says. “Think about it. These are American children living in the United States who do not have appropriate connectivity because of the infrastructure of the area they live in. They are in a situation where they need people to step up. We need folks to value that every child in Texas deserves to be educated even when there is a pandemic occurring.” 

Closing the Gap 
With the spotlight on Texas’ digital divide, Dempsey contends that solving it may not be as complex as one would think. It’s simply a matter of prioritization, funding, and support. 

“The nice thing about the digital divide is that it is a binary problem,” he explains. “Once you solve it, it is solved. It is either you don’t have a computer, or you do have a computer. Now you might have to refresh that a couple of times during the year, but it is unlike some of these other things that continue to be an issue for generations. I hope that my job does not exist in the next five years in Houston because we close the digital divide. It really just takes the right funding and support from the community to say everyone deserves access to technology, everyone deserves access to internet connectivity, and everyone deserves to have the knowledge and the skills on how to use it.” 

State lawmakers’ letter to Abbott is a start, because as Dempsey explains, governments need to invest in the infrastructure that allows for long-term investment in connectivity and moving toward the idea that an internet connection is a utility like water. For Dallas’ part, Giudice says the library and city officials have plans to do just that. 

“We are very much going to be working with the city on how we can push free Wi-Fi into neighborhoods,” Giudice says. “That is our goal. How can we utilize city-owned property, whether that be a rec center, library, or municipal building, where we can put Wi-Fi and beam it out to neighborhoods? How can we help beyond our doors?” 

And for Meza-Chavez, she is driven by the deep belief that Texas families deserve it. 

“Imagine that even individuals like myself, sitting as superintendent, would feel like, is there anything else we can do to help our community?” she states. “And why? Because we recognize the type of help that’s needed, and someone needs to trust that we know that, and we do need the powers that be to do their part and to have the same passion and desire to solve the problem.”