{"id":32588,"date":"2020-03-30T16:07:09","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T21:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=32588"},"modified":"2020-03-30T16:12:58","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T21:12:58","slug":"oklahoma-state-superintendent-says-covid-19-reinforces-need-for-digital-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2020\/03\/30\/oklahoma-state-superintendent-says-covid-19-reinforces-need-for-digital-access\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma state superintendent says COVID-19 reinforces need for digital access"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_32578\"  class=\"wp-caption module image aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3786px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-32578\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/03\/IMG_0009.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"3786\" height=\"2419\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/03\/IMG_0009.jpeg 3786w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/03\/IMG_0009-1920x1227.jpeg 1920w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/03\/IMG_0009-672x429.jpeg 672w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/03\/IMG_0009-768x491.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/03\/IMG_0009-150x96.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/03\/IMG_0009-300x192.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/03\/IMG_0009-620x396.jpeg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/03\/IMG_0009-1690x1080.jpeg 1690w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3786px) 100vw, 3786px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy Oklahoma State Department of Education<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister leads the Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting last week to vote on closing schools for the remainder of the 2020 spring semester. The closures were necessitated to combat COVID-19.<\/p>\n<\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joy Hofmeister wants the internet in the home of every Oklahoma student.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In an interview Monday, she said the COVID-19 closures have exposed an equity gap between students who have home internet access and those who don\u2019t.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI want every one of our Oklahoma students to have access to a computer and internet access at home,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I won\u2019t rest until that\u2019s done.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">About a third of people in Oklahoma lack access to broadband.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But alternate ways to get internet are out there and she said she\u2019ll leverage those to get access to students. She said she plans to work with internet service providers and leverage emergency funds from the federal government to get it done.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The State Department of Education is currently surveying districts to figure out the needs\u00a0 of its students statewide.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The best way to educate students while their schools are closed is through online learning, Hofmeister said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAnd that can\u2019t happen without connectivity so let&#8217;s make it happen for all kids and be prepared for the summer or the fall with or without a pandemic,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joy Hofmeister wants the internet in the home of every Oklahoma student.In an interview Monday, she said the COVID-19 closures have exposed an equity gap between students who have home internet access and those who don\u2019t.\u201cI want every one of our Oklahoma students to have access to a computer and internet access at home,\u201d she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":32507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"page-noFeature.php","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[1223,731,983],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32588"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32588"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32590,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32588\/revisions\/32590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}