Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 2, No. 37 - September 10, 2020
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This Issue
Business Briefs...................2
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................7
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
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Lawndale Tribune
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Featuring the Weekly Newspapers of Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale
Rams Player Closes a Digital Gap
By Rob McCarthy
A Los Angeles Ram player’s gift cast new
attention on a problem that South Bay families
without Internet access must confront again as
local school districts start the new year with
distance learning. Defensive lineman Sebastian
Joseph-Day bought computers and wifi hot
spots over the summer for 11th graders in the
Dreamer Scholars program organized by the
“I Have a Dream Foundation-Los Angeles.”
The team announced Joseph-Day’s donation
to four promising high school students and
their families who would be without access to
online learning for the 2020-21 school year.
“At the end of the day, everyone deserves a
fair chance in life, and that includes a good
education regardless of your race, socioeconomic
status or creed,” said Joseph-Day, who
played at Rutgers University in New Jersey
before the Rams drafted him in 2018. He
grew up in Pennsylvania in a school district
where more than one-third of the students
came from low-income households.
The Rams’ player’s gift also highlights the
importance that educational foundations play
in public education. The “I Have a Dream
Foundation-Los Angeles” has demonstrated
that intervention starting in first grade and
continuing up into high school can boost
graduation and college attendance rates.
It happened two consecutive years in the
Inglewood Unified School District. South
Bay foundations plug school funding gaps.
El Segundo public schools benefit from
annual support from the El Segundo Educational
Foundation. The nonprofit group raised
$1.8 million last school year for programs
at Richmond Street, Center Street, and the
middle school and high schools. The foundation
is prepared to match the $1.8 million
grant amount in the upcoming school year,
too. The group has listed several upcoming
fund-raisers for 2020-21 on its web site.
In El Segundo, donations from corporations
and individuals have made a difference in
classrooms by lowering class sizes in the lower
grades and offering more counseling services
for young teens. The needs in Inglewood
and Hawthorne tilt more toward academic
services, including wifi for the families of all
schoolchildren in those districts. The lack of
technology and a connection to the Internet
for some, has created a digital divide, and
Assemblywoman Autumn Burke-D-South
Bay is on a task force to study the issue
ahead of what looks to be another school
year with some - or all - distance learning.
State Superintendent of Schools Tony
Thurmond formed the task force just as the
coronavirus pandemic’s societal effects were
exploding. Schools closed and universities
sent students home to finish the semester
with video instruction from their teachers
and professors. For many years, rural communities
had been the lone voices asking
for state government and the Public Utilities
Commission to pressure Internet providers to
cover the entire state, not just metro areas.
With the closing of schools and the quick
switch to online learning, Thurmond, Burke
and other elected officials are in hot pursuit
of telecommunications companies, which
critics say have dragged their feet for years
about making wifi access more affordable
or free to low-income households.
“This task force signals a new era, that
California is now working with focus and
urgency to close the digital divide in the most
concrete way we have ever seen,” Thurmond
said in April. “COVID-19 is a public health
crisis in California and all around the world,
but it’s also revealed other crises like the
technology gap that has persisted for too
long, leading to opportunity and achievement
gaps for California’s students.”
Joseph-Day, who is a defensive lineman
with the Rams, saw the gap and decided to
fill in for four students through the I Have
a Dream-LA. Together, they identified four
students who needed the technological resources
to keep up in the upcoming school
year. His contribution didn’t stop there. He
also sent each of the students in the Dreamer
Scholars program a note of encouragement
and to wish them bright futures.
Students will return to their studies starting
in August, facing much uncertainty about
what the future will look like for them, their
classmates, teachers and coaches. Even the
Dreamer Scholars who’ve been supported
from first grade to high school need the reassurance
that tough times don’t last, but tough
people do. The access to wifi at home is a
game-changer for those kids, says the chief
executive of the local “I Have a Dream” team.
See Digital Gap, page 4
Los Angeles Ram Sebastian Joseph-Day made distance learning
possible for four students by donating computers and wifi service.
Photo credit: Los Angeles Rams.