Former New York Giant Victor Cruz teamed up with News 12 parent company Altice USA to donate Chromebooks to the Paterson Public Schools.

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the district to close in March, students were sent home with paper packets for manual learning.

“There’s definitely a divide. We shouldn’t be using paper packets, so many individuals took it upon themselves to make donations so our students could all have a device,” says School Superintendent Eileen Shafer.

Cruz is a Paterson native. He and Altice donated 100 Acer Chromebooks to help at-home learning.

“I’ve been to these inner-city schools in Paterson and I know the setbacks that they face on a daily basis in their normal school day without there being a pandemic,” says Cruz. “Now that they’re home without the very few resources they have at their own public schools and inner-city schools, they are behind the curve.

The district says that the donation does help. But it is still in need of nearly $4 million-worth of Chromebooks for students.

“My concern is this digital divide doesn’t create a diploma divide because the last thing we need for our students is to fall any further behind because of this pandemic,” says Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh.

The district says that it is currently up to about 7,000 working devices for high school students. It is not starting to distribute them to middle school students.

“I want to make sure that Paterson is always on the cutting edge and in front of technology and I know it’s going to take much more than 100 Chromebooks, but I’ll tell you, it’s a start,” says Cruz.

The district has also received some federal money to purchase technology for the students.