 Pedro Martinez, the superintendent for San Antonio ISD. This initiative that was announced by the president and by the former mayor of San Antonio now, secretary of housing urban development, called Connect Home, and it promises to give high-speed internet access to particularly low-income kids and give that to them for free. We know that technology is completely looking, forcing us to change how we perform everything we do in life, right, from, you know, everybody now has a cell phone. Most families have at least one to at least four or five devices in their household. At the same time, we have families that frankly, because of poverty, don't have any access to technology. And we talk a lot about achieving gaps in our district. Well, there's also gaps in terms of technology and the digital divide. And so this initiative, what it allows us to do is to work with our families. We have about roughly 4,600 families that are in public housing in our district, about 70% of the families that live in public housing in the city. So for us, these are children that live in poverty, good, hardworking families that frankly just have a lot of challenges. We're implementing more technology than ever in our schools. In fact, we're starting to just one-to-one, which means that every child having a device in a few of our schools, and that's going to expand. And for us, one of the challenges is always, well, we can find ways to get devices, but how do we get them connectivity? So how do we make sure that, for example, we're putting more and more assignments that are going to be digital, digital textbooks? And many of them, it's actually very much more cost-effective for us if we can have them connected to the internet, where they're stored somewhere else and we can have just have our children have access to them. So this effort really allows us to really push hard on more digital content, more technology in the classrooms. Frankly, with this solution, it allows us to really have a lot more flexibility to have children access a lot more content, which is just, like I said, there's just a lot of great things out there. But if children don't have the means to connect to the internet, frankly, those children are shut out. So there's two challenges, first of all. So some families do have mobile devices that have access to the internet. Usually that the access is limited because, frankly, they can't download a lot of video or a lot of rich content, either because frankly it's very expensive. Data plans are not cheap for families and there's a limit in terms of what they can access. And for us, like I said, we're starting to do more and more instruction with videos and rich visual content. That takes a lot of data capacity. And so for our families, we're always worried about how do we make sure that we don't have our families in criminal cost because of the way we're doing things. And so for us, having this high-speed internet access at home, like I said, we're already having developing strategies to put more devices in the hands of our children, whether it's tablets or laptops. This now allows us to also access, like I said, great content on the internet. And frankly, with 70% of the families that live in public housing being part of our district, this is a big deal. It's also going to have an effect on parents, right? Absolutely. You know, one of the things that we know is that, so 93% of our families live, are qualified for free or reduced lunch, which is a measure of poverty. And we know that many of our families, like I said, they're good working families, they're struggling, they're trying to figure out how to support their children. For us, we know that many of our children start below grade level. And so one of the things that we want to do in the future is leverage technology to help children catch up academically. So, and help parents, frankly, you know, understand here's what a tablet, you know, how can you, you can use a tablet and very specific applications that are academically rigorous, that they're the right content for children to either catch up in math or in reading. And I think, frankly, you know, many times our children are going to help us be the bridge so that for us adults who are afraid of technology, they can actually help our parents get more comfortable with technology. And frankly, you know, we want to change the way we do homework in the future. You know, instead of doing the old homework assignments that we all used to get, you know, sending a child with a device and saying, you know, we want you to practice, you know, your vocabulary words, we want you to practice math and this, and this application and show it to your parents so they can see exactly what you're doing. So for us, again, technology right now is a point, it is a place where it's changing the way we do business here in education. And like I said, this effort just allows us to do even more with our families, especially with families that live in poverty and in public housing. So what happens is, and of course, having the digital divide is just one of the symptoms that exists with poverty families. You know, so when you look at families who live in poverty, you'll see challenges with health, challenges with housing, of course, challenges with access to technology, you know, parents that are working two jobs or barely, you know, making enough money to bring, you know, to have food on the table, you know, just other, you know, other needs exist. And so, you know, we're very fortunate that we have a community that has a lot of social service supports, but it puts a lot of challenges on our schools. And we see it academically. We see our children that are one or two grade levels below. And like I said, you know, it forces us to really look at how we do things. And technology is a great vehicle. And that's a great tool. I think one of the things we have to look at as a community is when a family lives in poverty, let's really understand the challenges that the families are dealing with. We see it at the school level because we have the children for six to seven hours a day. And so we see the ramifications on the children all the way from preschool all the way to twelfth grade. We know that the way to get to get out of poverty, the best solution is a quality education. If children can graduate from high school, attend a top tier university, that is the best way for us to help children. When you look at what's happening right now in the world of technology and in the world of just the access that children have to content. So in the old days, when, you know, we used to have the teacher was the holder of all the knowledge. And so the children were just receiving the information. Now when children have access to technology, they can access a lot of content themselves. And they can actually see and look at things and, you know, literature pieces. And like I said, there's so many different applications for reading and math and science and social studies. And so, you know, there's things that are just out there that we can leverage. And when we can bring that into a classroom, and especially with children that live in poverty, and they see the richness of that information, you know, many children, for example, when we talk about geography, you know, mostly many of these children have never traveled outside their neighborhood. Well, we can actually show them with pictures and digital content of what, you know, what the pyramids in Egypt look like, you know, what, you know, some of the seven wonders of the world what they actually physically look like. And then again, for us to be able to have them see that at home and build their love or learning. I mean, that's the power that we have with technology. And like I said, not having access to the internet, which most of us take for granted. Most of us, you know, most of us have multiple devices at home. And we don't think about the fact there's families that have no devices, have no access to the internet. Even though we might think it's inexpensive, again, these are families that are working two jobs. These are families that are struggling to, you know, to live in affordable housing, to, you know, deal with, you know, having food on the table. And like I said, any kind of health care concerns, especially when you have children. And so for us, you know, we see this as just, again, a step in the right direction of helping to help these families. And then like I said, for us, it's just going to help it allow us to, you know, be more aggressive about rolling out more technology. So, you know, the biggest challenge we have in our schools is making sure we have the infrastructure. You know, many of our schools, because they're old buildings, they were built before the internet and before technology was really something that was, you know, really popular in our schools. And so now not only is it popular, it's frankly necessary for us to just do our work. And so, you know, it's really making sure we put in the infrastructure. So it's millions of dollars, frankly. And then we have to, that's where we do bond campaigns and we go to the community and our community has been very generous in helping us. What's interesting about devices is once we unleash the schools, in other words, they'll do fundraisers, they'll go, you know, they'll write, they'll write grants, the parents will fundraise, it's amazing to me. Once we have the infrastructure in place, because children are just so, you know, technology and children are almost, you know, they're both like magnets, you know, they're both, they can, they both get, you know, they're so connected. But our biggest challenge is the money for infrastructure and then having a really good, strong academic plan so that when devices are in the schools, parents know this is how we're using them. Yeah, you know, all of us, you know, in our phone bills, we pay what we call an FCC tax. And it's not a large dollar amount, but that money is collected nationally and it's given to school districts with children, mainly for districts that have high poverty rates, high, you know, 93 percent of our children qualify for free and reduced lunch. So we've been able to utilize those funds to invest in infrastructure. So that's really helped a lot. The challenge is we have 90 campuses and we're serving, you know, such a big footprint, you know, in our city. And so for us in many of these neighborhoods, it's interesting because it's not only the infrastructure in the building, but the infrastructure in the neighborhoods. So, you know, we're very dependent also on what investments have been made by the telephone companies and, you know, the cable companies because if they don't have strong capacity outside of our schools, we can have state-of-the-art equipment in the schools, but we still have limits in terms of speed. That's exactly the deal. I was said Wheatley, right? Wheatley Middle School. So inside, here is this terrific speed. Across the street was nothing. And so you can send a kid home and they can't. Which is why, again, developments like this are so important because we can't do it alone in the schools and, you know, we barely have enough resources to really, you know, again, try to, you know, we're trying to implement aggressively technology in our buildings. We're always worried about what happens when the children go home. Because otherwise, you know, we want the learning to continue at home. You know, that's really the best way for us to help our children. And that way, when they go to college, that's part of, you know, their DNA. You know, that's part of how they do things. Because we know, you know, in college, that's what it takes. Ramiro Salazar, Director of the San Antonio Public Library. Okay. Yesterday, the President and the Housing Secretary Castro announced this new Connect Home initiative. And there is a component of that that involves libraries. Can you talk about what that component is going to be? Well, we don't have all the specific details. We do know that libraries continue to provide and play a very important role in not only bridging the digital divide, but also providing digital literacy. So I'm not surprised. And I was not, because I was informed by the American Library Association Office that this was going to be released. And while we do not have a lot of details in terms of the actual programs and services, I would expect that they will be consistent with what we do now. Again, libraries, public libraries play a very important role in bridging that digital divide. We know that many communities, especially here in San Antonio, do not have access to high-speed broadband. In fact, there's some communities, I'm told, that still rely on rotary access. It's amazing, especially in the southern part and western part of the community. So libraries for many is the only resource for them to access high-speed internet, to have access to public computers, to be able to conduct access to everyday needs, whether it's applying for housing, if it's applying for a job, whether it's enrolling their child in school. That's the digital age. That's how we do business now, primarily, is through the internet and through online connections. So it's very important that we continue to work to expand access to broadband and to the internet. And we look forward to working in developing strategies to target public housing communities, especially students. They have an extreme need to have access to computers and the internet. Much of their homework relies on the ability to have access to computers. And so we're already thinking of many ways that we can reach out and be able to expand access to that internet. Tell me something. When students get access and they're going to get access to high-speed broadband in their homes, why is it important that they also get training in digital literacy? What is digital literacy? Digital literacy encompasses quite a broad spectrum of ability to utilize not only technology, but be able to navigate the internet. There's so much information that you can find on the internet. Finding the appropriate information, finding accurate information, finding reliable information, it's a challenge. Libraries play an important role in helping users navigate the internet and also identify accurate and reliable information. Digital literacy also includes folks from simply learning how to use the mouse. And we provide that. Our staffed about the 28 library locations provide that every day, how to turn on the computer, how to understand the keyboard and the mouse and then how to be able to access databases and websites and the internet. 40% of households in San Antonio do not have access to the internet. It might be surprising to me or to you, but that's the reality. And so while we for many computers are very inexpensive, but for many households that are struggling to just put food on the table, paying for high-speed internet is not an option for them. We're having a computer, some libraries, yes, libraries for many that they are only resource for them. They're only option for them to be able to have access to a computer and to the internet. So even in this age, there's still many, many households that do not have access to high-speed broadband. What information we have now, we know that here in San Antonio, the Housing Authority has already started providing Wi-Fi hotspots. We're exploring the possibility of, as part of our service, offering Wi-Fi hotspots that you can check out and take home. So that's one way of facilitating access. So we're looking at many ways of facilitating access, inviting folks also to the library, not only physically, but to our digital library to access the abundance of resources, digital resources that the library has to offer that will help students and adults in their everyday lives. Now this particular program, I understand, also has a component that focuses on students because, again, it's extremely critical for students to have access to broadband, high-speed internet. So we will be working with our team coordinator and our team services department to figure out ways of how can we facilitate that connection. Again, the idea is to continue to help bridge this digital divide that continues to exist. What kind of resources would you like to see come to the library so that you can implement more of these strategies, such as renting out Wi-Fi? Well, this whole issue of this particular initiative, while we have existing resources that we can deploy, we may not have the capacity to fully do what we want to do. We're going to do everything we can and we will have an impact. We will have an impact. To expand and broaden that impact, we may need additional resources. For example, I mentioned the Wi-Fi hotspots that you can check out. To me, that's a very cool idea, very appropriate. It's, how do we pay for it? So that's the kind of resources I'm going to be looking for. Angela Johnson, communications manager for the San Antonio Housing Authority. Angela, tell me about the Connect Home program that the President and Housing Secretary Castro announced this week. Well, you know, it's an awesome venture. This is a great initiative and President Obama and Secretary Castro just see the need of bridging the digital divide. And looking at this initiative and providing the bandwidth inside a public housing residence, homes, opens up a whole new world for them. Not only for children, but for parents as well. So we're really glad to be a part of it. So what's Saha's role going to be in this? Well, you know, Saha was really proactive with this. Back in 2013, we actually installed Wi-Fi in 50 of our public housing community centers. And so this gave access to residents already, giving them access to job applications online or any information from Saha's standpoint that we would share with our residents as a whole. And so this is just kind of one step further. We'll be leading the effort as far as Connect Home is concerned. We will be coordinating with the city officials, with county officials, with a lot of different organizations within the city of San Antonio to really implement this White House initiative. So they have access to Wi-Fi in public housing in San Antonio, but this is going to give them access, well, there's devices, right? Absolutely. So there are going to be iPads and some devices. That is our understanding. And so in the community rooms, we naturally were limited to a certain amount of computer terminals that we can have there. But again, having this at home is definitely much more reassuring. We can make sure that people are constantly using the technology and the devices for their benefit. And also it's going to be faster. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that with this Connect Home, with our already established Wi-Fi connectivity, it speaks to our mission of connecting and creating dynamic communities where people thrive. And you'll see that, I think, really over in these next few years as more and more success stories come out of Saha and our residents and how they're using this technology and its resources.