Imagine getting low marks in a class simply because you could not afford to buy the supplies required for that class. That is the situation faced by many of my ESL students each school term.
My students are immigrants; many are refugees relocated to our state under U.N.
treaties. Their families struggle to make rent, buy food, repay their transportation costs to the U.S. (yes, refugees must repay their plane fare!). Textbooks are free and lunch is free, but there are no subsidies for lab fees and the specialized supplies required for high school. In a family with a monthly income of $400-$600, it is a huge sacrifice to spend $10 on a flash drive.
My Project
Most of my students do not have computers in their homes and must do all their work on computers at school or at the public library. They frequently are frustrated when work is lost or an email goes awry and there is no backup. With flash drives, the students will be able to carry their work with them, rather than depending on uploading it to an email account to save it. Additionally, the flash drives are a required supply in the business math course that many students take. A flash drive is a one time purchase that will benefit each student throughout high school and (hopefully) college.
A small thing like a $10 flash drive is a huge purchase for a refugee family of 6 with a combined monthly income of $600.
Having a flash drive will allow students to store important schoolwork & transport it between computers, thus alleviating the anxiety and frustration they feel when a document is lost. It will also ease the anxiety both they and their parents feel when families try to carve $10 for a flash drive out of a budget that is already stretched to the limit by basic needs.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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