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[et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]As recently as 2017, nearly 13,000 minors in San Francisco County schools were living below the federal poverty level.[1] In 2018, SFUSD (San Francisco Unified School District) reported that more than half of its 54,000 students were socioeconomically disadvantaged, due in large part to San Francisco’s rising cost of living.[2][3] Regionally, “roughly 20 percent of Bay Area residents are too poor to meet their basic needs.”3 The troubling prevalence of poverty in the Bay Area plays out in our school districts, some of which have as high as 85% eligibility for free or subsidized lunches — a key indicator of child poverty.[4] The correlation between socioeconomic status and access to new technologies is a strong and consistent one; according to federal census data, roughly half of households with incomes below the poverty level had access to a laptop or desktop computer, compared to as many as 93.6% of middle and upper-class households. In this day and age, access to a computer is vital to a student’s success. In order to remain competitive as college admissions and job candidates, “children need media access, adequate media and computer literacy, and the ability to deal with media of the future.”[4]
After school programs and services provide a key resource for the academic and personal development of our future leaders and changemakers. The benefits of after-school education “are most apparent for disadvantaged children,”[5] who often lack the resources and guidance afforded to their more privileged peers. Young learners in the San Francisco Bay Area — an epicenter of technological innovation — should have access to personal computers, as well as computer and digital literacy programs, regardless of the socioeconomic status of their parents. Through computer and digital literacy after-school programs, SFUSD has the opportunity to tailor education in evolving technologies for those students who run the highest risk of ending up on the wrong side of the digital divide.
By contributing to RRRcomputer.org via the tax deductible donation of used laptops and desktop computers, donors can play an integral role in ensuring that Bay Area public schools fulfill their mission and duty to create a more equitable learning space for our next generation of innovators and leaders. By refurbishing and reusing unwanted computers to benefit disadvantaged students, RRRcomputer.org aims to close the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” on either side of the digital divide, one student at a time. Through comprehensive computer access and digital literacy training, RRRcomputer.org seeks to do its part for the Bay Area community and its most vulnerable and valuable members — its children.
[1] Fact Finder; Census.gov, 2016
[2] SFUSD Facts at a Glance, 2018
[3] Tipping Point, Professional Services Close – Up, 2015
[4] United Way Bay Area, 2016
[5] Encyclopedia of Human Development 2006 and Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media, 2006 and 2007[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column]
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