New Brunswick Teachers Ask For Donations To Help Their Classrooms – New Brunswick, NJ Patch

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — The New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund, a non-profit created to address the health and economic crisis caused by coronavirus, is providing $250,000 in matching grants to teacher projects in underprivileged school districts, and that includes New Brunswick.

“Teachers know best what their students need to continue learning during this unprecedented time,” said First Lady Tammy Murphy, the founding chair of the NJPRF. “We are thrilled to help support teachers at schools with 90 percent or more students receiving free or reduced lunch, thus enabling our most vulnerable students to have access to the best educational materials possible.”

The money is raised through DonorsChoose, an online platform that gives teachers an opportunity to raise funds for their classroom.

For example, the fund recently donated 1,200 WiFi hotspots to the Trenton school district and is working to identify opportunities to close the digital divide in other school districts.

The projects funded through DonorsChoose range from $154 for a gift card to as much as $4,700 for an Apple Macbook Pro.

Many of the teachers’ proposals are for technology to help students to learn remotely, though teachers are also asking for supplies that can be used in the classroom.

Of the state’s 607 school districts, more than half are hybrid and 172 districts will start the year with fully remote learning.