LOCAL EDUCATION CHANGES              

Florida Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Corcoran ordered the Florida College System campuses to close and go fully online with instruction for the remainder of the semester.  Students will be able to contact instructors and access all courses in Canvas beginning March 30. 

The college will provide phone numbers and emails for answering questions or concerns beginning March 30.   Chipola President Dr. Sarah Clemmons says, "Our goal is to provide the opportunity for students to complete their courses by the end of the semester, but we understand we have to meet challenges to accomplish this." 

College employees will work remotely and should contact their supervisors by phone or email for further information.
Clemmons continued, "We encourage students to let us know how we can support them as we all do our very best at Chipola to stay safe and keep learning going.  Please do your best to protect yourself, family, and the community."

For information, visit www.chipola.edu or phone 850-526-2761. 

Comcast Increases Access to and Speeds of Internet Essentials’ Low-Income Internet Service to Support Americans Through the Coronavirus Pandemic

As our country continues to manage the COVID-19 emergency, we recognize that our company plays an important role in helping our customers stay connected – to their families, their workplaces, their schools, and the latest information about the virus – through the Internet.

We also know that for millions of low-income Americans who don’t have Internet service at home, this uncertain time is going to be even more difficult to manage.  As schools and businesses close and families are encouraged, or even mandated, to stay home, Internet connectivity becomes even more important.

At Comcast, we’ve been looking for ways to help through our Internet Essentials program, which is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive broadband adoption program for low-income Americans.  Since 2011, it has connected millions of individuals to the Internet.

A hallmark of this program has been our flexibility in adjusting Internet Essentials to meet the needs of low-income residents in our footprint.  So, effective Monday, March 16^th, we are putting in place two substantial program enhancements to help these families deal with this crisis.

1.  We will make it even easier for low-income families who live in a Comcast service area to sign up by offering new customers 60 days of complimentary Internet Essentials service, which is normally available to all qualified low-income households for $9.95/month.

2.  Also, we are increasing Internet speeds for the Internet Essentials service from 15/2 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps for all new and existing customers, which will be the speed of the service going forward.  In this way, we will ensure that Internet Essentials customers will be able to use their Internet service for all their increased needs as a result of this health crisis.

We want to make it as fast and simple as possible to access this service:

• To receive the increased Internet speeds, existing customers will not need to do anything.  The new speeds will be rolled out nationally over the next few days.
• We’ll send all new customers a free self-install kit that includes a cable modem with a Wi-Fi router.  There will be no term contract or credit check and no shipping fee.
• To sign up, applicants can simply visit www.internetessentials.com.  The accessible website also includes the option to video chat with customer service agents in American Sign Language.  There are also two dedicated phone numbers 1-855-846-8376 for English and 
  1-855-765-6995 for Spanish.

We’re also reaching out to our thousands of governmental and nonprofit partners to help us spread the word. Our hope is that broader access and faster speeds will help all of our Internet Essentials

customers more easily work from home, access educational resources, obtain important government health care alerts, and stay in contact with their families during this difficult time.