Equity Comes Down to Device Access

My View

Shortly after becoming superintendent in early 2019, I implored county officials to address our school district’s need to purchase computers for all 107,000 students in the Shelby County, Tenn., schools. As the state’s largest and one of the most economically challenged districts, we know the seeds for the digital divide were sown in the days when Memphis and Shelby County attempted desegregation in the early 1960s.

With a multimillion-dollar price tag in a challenging budget period, there was no groundswell of support in early 2019 and consequently no outlay of funds. It was, indeed, an idea whose time had not yet come.

A year later, the world had changed.