How Have California School Districts Used the Emergency Connectivity Fund?

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is preparing to close out its Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF), which Congress authorized in 2021 to facilitate remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nationwide, eligible schools, districts, libraries, and consortia have requested over $9.2 billion through the program to provide internet connectivity and devices for instruction, research, and homework. In California, most applicants were school districts, and the majority of these funds went to districts with high percentages of students with historically tenuous internet access. Districts were also more likely to use ECF funds for connectivity services, rather than devices. Californian school districts submitted 2,206 applications, and the ECF approved about $859 million in funding requests. The majority of these funds went to districts with high proportions of Black, Latino, or low-income students, groups that tend to have lower levels of internet access. Districts with high concentrations of Black or Latino students garnered a majority of the funds ($511 million), an outsize share given their proportion of applications. Similarly, low-income districts also received more than half of the total ($447 million), though they submitted a smaller proportion of applications. Districts with high percentages of English Learners (ELs) represented a little less than a third of applications and received $210 million, or about a quarter of the total funds. Districts without high concentrations of any of these student groups secured $246 million.