When the coronavirus prompted the swift closures of school districts across the country and education officials began devising distance learning plans, the technology team for Charleston's public schools knew they had a problem: the roughly 4,000 students in their district without internet at home and no way to access online instruction.

"As a district, we do not practice e-learning a whole lot," Thomas Nawrocki, executive director of information technology at 50,000-student Charleston County School District, says. "Once they started talking about lessons at home, and teachers sending lessons via Google Drive or doing Google Meets, we had to act pretty quick."

Nawrocki and his team cranked the WiFi output signal inside schools so that those living in close proximity can use it, and also so that people can drive or bike to the school parking lots and tap into it there. The district also has 10 schools with powerful antennas that are helping provide access to the internet to neighborhoods in the immediate area.

The school district also has 10 buses with WiFi that officials park at different schools for half a day and then park in different neighborhoods for the rest of the day. Charleston school officials say they prioritize schools and their surrounding neighborhoods based on the number of students enrolled who receive free- and reduced-priced lunch, which is often used as a proxy for low-income.

In total, Charleston school officials are now providing internet access at 30 sites each day across the district.

"It's crucial," Nawrocki says. "Any student who doesn't have that access is losing out."

With schools closed for more than 55 million children across the country, Charleston is hardly alone in the race to provide internet access to families without it.

According to the most recent Education Department data, 14% of children ages 3-18 – about 9.4 million in total – are without home internet, though other estimates from internet advocacy groups peg that number much higher, at 12 million children.

The digital divide disproportionately impacts students of color, according to an analysis from USAFacts , which shows that 37% of American Indian and Alaska Native children lack access to the internet, 19% of black children and 17% of Hispanic children compared to 12% of white children and Asian children.

Photos: America at Standstill View All 30 Images

There is already a significant achievement gap in the U.S. between poor students and students of color and their wealthier, whiter peers, and the lack of access to the internet during months-long school closures is likely to set already disadvantaged students even further behind.

More than a dozen national education organizations urged Congress to include in the federal stimulus Congress passed last week $2 billion in dedicated funding to ensure internet access for those without it but it didn't make it into the $2 trillion package meant to stem the economic impact of the coronavirus epidemic, drawing the ire of much of the K-12 community.

"We cannot comprehend why Congress refused to provide adequate direct funding for WiFi hotspots, connection devices and mobile wireless service through the existing and successful E-rate program to help our students most in need," Lily Eskelsen García said. "With tens of millions of students at home and educators seeking ways to deliver instruction, every student needs the technology to ensure they don't fall behind."

Eskelsen García and others are now pressuring Congress to include that dedicated funding in a new aid package that's likely to come next month.

In the meantime, federal lawmakers are urging state lawmakers to use some of the $31 billion dollars included for K-12 and higher education in the trillion-dollar stimulus to expand internet access.

"I urge you to leverage federal resources to expand digital learning opportunities for Maryland students," Sen. Chris van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, wrote in a letter sent Wednesday to Gov. Larry Hogan. "If not, children without computers or disconnected from the internet will be left on the wrong side of the digital divide."

Approximately 16 percent of Maryland households with school-aged children do not have broadband internet access at home and an estimated 12 percent do not have a computer at home.

"We must work together in light of this unprecedented disruption of K-12 education," he wrote. "We cannot afford for students to be left behind during this pandemic."

Some internet companies are helping to fill the gap.

In Los Angeles, the second largest school district in the country, school officials are using $100 million in emergency funding and partnering with Verizon to give all 600,000 students a tablet and internet access, as well as training all teachers how to teach online. The New York City Department of Education partnered with Apple and T-Mobile to distribute internet-enabled iPads to low-income families. Atlanta Public Schools partnered with T-Mobile to distribute 9,000 mobile hotspots to families.

For the most part, however, districts are trying to make the most of their existing infrastructure and going it alone.