ORDER During the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, public schools in New York City have been largely closed since March to in-person learning. For all children, including the City’s approximately 114,000 children who live in homeless shelters, education must be accessed virtually. Just like getting to brick and mortal schools requires reliable transportation, access to virtual school during the pandemic requires access to reliable internet. At the time this lawsuit was filed, however, almost none of the City’s homeless shelters housing school-aged children had broadband WiFi internet installed. Plaintiffs, parents of school-age children who live in homeless shelters and the Coalition for the Homeless, brought this putative class action, alleging that Defendants’ failure to provide adequate and reliable access to the internet has violated the students’ rights under state and federal statutory and constitutional law to receive a sound basic education notwithstanding their residence in homeless shelters. Plaintiffs have filed a motion for a preliminary injunction and seek expedited discovery and an evidentiary hearing on the motion. In their response to Plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction motion, Defendants argue that Plaintiffs had failed to state a claim on their federal and state constitutional and statutory arguments. At base, the City contends that it is meeting its state and federal law obligations by doing its best and working to resolve the issues through a variety of means, including now working expeditiously to install WiFi internet access in all homeless shelters. Defendants ask the Court to resolve these preliminary legal arguments in advance of discovery and a hearing. Having considered the parties’ briefing and held oral arguments, the Court concludes that at least one of Plaintiffs’ claims survives Defendants’ legal arguments at this stage. Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ request to set an expedited discovery schedule and schedule an evidentiary hearing and DENIES Defendants’ request that the Court dismiss the motion for a preliminary injunction on the present record. I. Factual Background The following facts are undisputed unless otherwise noted. On March 15, 2020, Mayor de Blasio ordered the New York City public schools to shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. See Dkt. No. 1 (“Compl.”) 34. Over one million students, including the estimated 114,000 homeless students who attend those schools, were required to continue their education remotely. Id. Homeless students who resided in New York City shelters were especially vulnerable to this change, because of the around 200 shelters serving families with children in the DHS system, most failed to provide wireless internet access, or WiFi, to its residents. Id. 56. As a result, many of those students lacked the means to access the internet. And without such means, those students were deprived of the ability to continue their education. By way of ensuring that those students’ educational progress would not be hindered, the Department of Education (“DOE”) devised a plan to provide students who lacked the means to attend class virtually with iPads that were equipped with unlimited cellular plans. Id.
36-38. DOE initially contracted with T-Mobile to provide the cellular plans. Id. 38. But shortly after distributing the iPads, the City began receiving reports that they were having problems connecting to the internet. Id.
