Of the thousands of students I’ve taught in my 10-year career, Natalie is the brightest, sweetest and purest. She shines in my Advanced Placement English class, pushing the thinking of her peers while deftly articulating her own ideas. A relentless hard worker, she juggles two other AP classes, honors math and extracurriculars. Outside of school, she finds time to help her mom, an immigrant from Ecuador, sell Icees from a cart in downtown Brooklyn, while at home she translates bills and documents for her.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak forced our school to close and we traded our rich classroom discussions for grainy Zoom breakouts, Natalie hasn’t missed an assignment or complained a single time about a dizzying online school schedule or crowded lifestyle. Instead, she asks how I’m doing. She’s still maintaining her straight As.
If she earns a passing score on the coming AP test, she’ll be able to turn her hard work into college credit, and a savings of at least $3,000 on her future tuition. But she may never get that chance — because she won’t be able to get online to take the test.
Natalie’s family doesn’t have reliable internet access at home. Since we closed in March, she’s relied on a Chromebook our school provided and 60 days of free access from her local cable company, Optimum. But that 60 days is about to expire, cutting off her ability to connect to the world, continue her education, see her teachers’ faces, giggle at her friends’ TikToks — and take her AP English exam.
A few days ago, I called the College Board, which administers AP exams, desperate to find a solution. Their suggestion: She should try to take the test sitting outside a McDonald’s. I got off the phone in disbelief as I rehearsed what I was going to say to her: “Sorry, Nat. I tried, but College Board says your best bet is to bum the free wifi off the McDonald’s on Knickerbocker.”
I thought of the many students across the East River and across the country who will take the same test sitting undisturbed in their own rooms on their own computers, having never even seen an internet bill before.
Natalie isn’t alone. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, almost 15% of school-age children don’t have internet access at home — many because they can’t afford it. That means millions of students across the country are missing out on any online instruction their schools are offering right now. And it’s likely that tens of thousands of high schoolers will find themselves scrambling to find a free internet hotspot to take AP tests over the next week that could mean the difference between affording college or not.
This is embarrassing. We can’t stand by while so many students’ futures are derailed for lack of a reliable internet connection. Optimum and all other internet service providers should provide students with free access until schools reopen, regardless of their family’s ability to pay or any existing debts. They could do this tomorrow. If they won’t, governments at all levels should pressure or require them to do the right thing.
In the meantime, I’ll keep calling Optimum on Natalie’s behalf. I’ll gladly sit on hold for two hours after my online classes, phone calls to parents, individual check-ins with students and staff meetings. I’ll even be nice to the customer service rep. If they refuse to extend her service, you better believe she won’t be at a McDonald’s on test day. Instead, I’ll be standing outside her house, cheering her on underneath my face mask with my phone’s hot spot connected to her laptop.
I’ll gladly do all this, because Natalie deserves it. We may not be able to connect in person, but it’s imperative we connect our kids to the internet.
Sun teaches English at Math, Engineering and Science Academy Charter High School in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
