‘Smart Buses' roll WiFi to students without access

In South Carolina, 180,000 households don’t have access to Wifi, according to estimates. A problem for students who are trying to attend virtual classes. Using CARES funds, the state purchased hotspots. In one county, almost all of the students are connected. “The hotspots are working well, with just about all of the county’s 77,000 students logging on to learn.”

School districts and cities in California are looking to create their own local Wifi networks as a long-term solution to the digital divide, and an alternative to hotspots. Some are even becoming internet service providers themselves (ISP) — efforts, they say, that will make it easier to provide internet access to those who can’t afford it.

In Jackson, Michigan, 1 in 5 children have access to wifi through school buses. Out of the roughly 5,000 children, 70 percent qualify for free and reduced lunch. The buses guarantee they have reliable access to the internet during a pandemic. The buses park outside apartment complexes, a homeless shelter, and the rec center from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s just one way the school district is adapting to student needs during a health pandemic.

In Denver, learning pods are helping students access virtual classes during a pandemic. At the Adams 12 school district, 4000 students, district-wide, participate in the pod. Similarly, HOPE Online Learning Academy Co-Op launched a learning center. Students can sit in a classroom, access Wi-Fi, and count on the support of an adult. They also distributed 600 computers, 400 webcams from PCs, and 1,077 laptops to enrolled middle and high school students.

Apps that track students’ online activity, door-to-door visits, and receiving input from families on how to reopen schools, are all ways school districts across the country are responding to absenteeism during the pandemic. In one San Antonio district, they were able to locate around 2,900 of the 3,000 students who weren’t showing up to classes.

The Rochester School District in New Hampshire has figured out a way to connect students with limited or no internet access during the pandemic—school bus hotspots. The school district has equipped nine school buses with a mobile hotspot that delivers internet within a 300-foot range, each parked within an identified area of need, all at no cost to families.

Around 20% of high school students in rural Moulton Independent School District in Texas don't have the vital internet connection they need to complete their assignments. Students at Shiner Independent School District, also a rural area school, faced similar issues. Both districts teamed up with Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, a non-profit utility company, which distributed 20 unlimited data hotspots to Moulton at a $40 monthly cost, as opposed to $200+ cost. Along with individual mobile hotspots, GVEC also turned the Shiner school parking lot into a larger hotspot.

This T.V. segment showcases multiple solutions used by school districts and nonprofits across the nation, from creating cell phone towers so students have access to reliable wifi, to curbside meals, to learning pods. Overall, the hosts emphasize that the solutions highlighted in this segment involve a process that begins before a student even enters the virtual classroom and often involves many people working together.

A school district in Virginia has implemented a two-prong solution to provide internet access to rural students during the pandemic. The indoor solution allows students to make appointments to be inside the school to access the internet. The outside solution, equipping three schools in the district with equipment to boost their Wi-Fi signals, allowing students who can’t make indoor appointments a way to access the Wi-Fi. “We just took advantage of something that was already happening in the district."

School districts and cities are creating learning hubs, or learning centers, to provide students with remote learning and access to Wi-Fi. The hubs are free, low-cost, or subsided. The hubs are a necessary alternative for working parents who don’t have access to childcare or the internet at home.