HISD pulls plug on free Verizon broadband for students in favor of $15-a-month-per-pupil program

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The Houston Independent School District said it has a broadband provider in place after ending its deal with Verizon last month, which provided free internet and devices to thousands of students and teachers across the district. Still, this new plan will cost the district, and now, the district and state lawmakers are clashing over the decision.

The Verizon Innovative Learning School Program brought free internet and laptops to 56,000 students and 2,000 teachers across the district. That ended in mid-November when HISD chose not to opt back into the program.

"The instructional model that the Verizon program wanted to continue does not align with what the district wants," HISD Chief Technology Officer Scott Gilhousen said.

According to the district, the partnership ended because Verizon required its own people to train teachers on how devices should be cared for and set up. New district policy doesn't allow anyone outside the district to train teachers.

"Essentially, the principal needs to be doing the training from the instructional coach standpoint, is what it is. And when you think about the many different entities that would want to train teachers, it's really focusing on that principal being the instructional leader," Gilhousen said.

In response to that reasoning, 12 Democratic state lawmakers signed a letter penned by Rep. Penny Morales Shaw, D-Houston, saying the Verizon deal should come back.

"For a leader to say, 'Well, these 56,000 students won't have this anymore because no other justification than the internet companies requiring teachers to have a little bit of training' - to leave students high and dry when it was of no charge to the district under all those circumstances, it didn't make any sense," Morales Shaw told ABC13 over the phone.

HISD said it has a plan to keep students connected. Students will be able to request T-Mobile hotspots through their principal, but this new program costs the district $15 a month per student. So far, about 50 students received one.

"As a district, we are committed to providing broadband access for our students that are in need," Gilhousen said.

Eyewitness News asked HISD if it did an adequate job informing students and teachers that one program would end and another would expand.

"For us, there was not any signaling that the community was concerned about losing broadband access at that point. However, our plan was to always replace the broadband access that we did lose. That's what we'll do. We'll provide that as we have been since the pandemic," Gilhousen said.

You can read the lawmakers' letter below. If viewing on mobile, tap here.

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