Need a free laptop or hotspot for your student? Tuesday is your last day to sign up

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Duval County parents only have until Tuesday, April 12, to apply for a free laptop or hot spot for their child through Duval County Public Schools.

The school district announced in a blog post on Team Duval that they will offer families in need the opportunity to apply for free laptops and hot spots.

The district received $22 million to provide 43,000 student laptops and 10,000 hot spots through AT&T.

“The funding from this actually comes from people here in Jacksonville,” DCPS Chief Information Officer, Jim Culbert says. “If anybody has either a cellphone bill or a bill they pay at home, there’s a fund on there called e-rate and that’s where this money is coming from. So, we’d like to see those laptops come back to Jacksonville because they’ve been funded by people that are right here.”

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While school operations have been back to normal since the pandemic, many local families are still in need and DCPS wants to make sure all students have the tools they need to make the grade.

Culbert says typically, elementary school students have priority. But with only a few days left to sign up through FOCUS, thousands of parents have yet to do it.

“Right now, we’re not there,” Culbert says. “Right now, we’re at a place that if you say if you have an unmet need, we’re going to get you a laptop.”

Culbert says this isn’t just about helping students — it’s about helping families.

“The idea of this laptop is not necessarily just for the student, but for anybody in that household that is helping that student achieve their educational excellence,” Culbert said.

If you apply and the district approves your request, you should expect to get an email in the next few weeks. You’ll get a separate email later letting you know when the laptop has been shipped to your school.

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A link to the Parent Emergency Communications Fund Survey is available in the parent’s FOCUS account. The survey will be open through Tuesday, April 12.

The students who receive the laptops will each be supplied a copy of Microsoft Office 365. Students will be able to take their laptops home and will only have to return the laptops when they are no longer enrolled in the district.

As of Thursday, only 5,000 families have applied for one. So, the supplies are there, parents just need to reach out. They can do that by going to their FOCUS account and they’ll find a link to a survey to fill out.

More information can be found on the Team Duval blog post.