HISD has received approval for more than $70.6 million in E-Rate funding, which will benefit about 154,000 students at 210 campuses.
The money can be used to improve internal connections including cabling, routers, switches, wireless points, servers, and basic maintenance of those devices.
The $70.6 million represents the district’s funding request for the 2009 funding year. HISD is still awaiting a decision on funding requests for subsequent years.
“HISD classrooms will soon benefit from millions of dollars worth of desperately needed upgrades to our schools’ technology infrastructure,” HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said.
E-Rate funding to HISD was frozen in 2007 as a result of a federal investigation of alleged wrongdoing, which involved three former HISD employees accepting meals and other gifts from E-Rate vendors.
Shortly after Grier was hired as superintendent in September 2009, he learned that HISD was receiving no E-Rate money because of the protracted settlement negotiations with the Federal Communications Commission over how much money HISD owed because of the earlier improprieties.
Grier recommended quickly settling the disagreement so that Houston classrooms could once again receive the technology infrastructure they need. The $850,000 settlement made HISD eligible to begin receiving E-Rate funding again in 2010. Since then, HISD has been approved for a total of $84.5 million in E-Rate funding.
The federal E-Rate program is designed to bridge the digital divide between more affluent suburban students and urban students who are at or below the poverty line. More than 80 percent of HISD students qualify for free and reduced price school meals, which is an indicator of poverty. Based on that, the funding was approved to cover 90 percent of the cost of the projects, with the district picking up the remaining amount.
E-Rate funding can be used for telecommunications services, internet access, internal connections and basic equipment maintenance.
