Written by GCC
As the number of COVID-19 cases multiply and the duration of school closures increase, districts across the country are struggling with providing students online learning opportunities. Great strides have been made to successfully develop online curriculum, but schools must also consider the equity and quality of the internet access their students have available. While students in many states are being asked to work remotely an estimated 9.7 million do not have reliable internet service at home.
In my own community we have several rural communities around us that face this struggle. This prompted us to start doing some research to see how this is being addressed in other parts of the country and we found some great articles to share. We found that some districts are revamping buses to serve as mobile hotspots and placing them throughout the community – although as some students return the number of buses available is declining. Other districts are building their own wireless networks with the help of CARES act funding, and one Utah district has successfully built their own internet service so students can connect from home.
The pandemic has brought to light the need to address this in ways that will create equity in connectivity long-term. There is a lot of information out there and we wanted to share some of the great articles we have seen in the past few months.
If your district has taken creative steps to address this issue we would love to hear more about what has been done to share some best practices with others.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2021/01/17/this-utah-school-district/
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/08/schools-internet-buses/
