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Education Dive
Wi-Fi and hotspots 'still won't work' for rural districts lacking connectivity
While coronavirus-related closures have renewed the push to close the
connectivity gap for rural communities, those initiatives are
“disconnected” from the reality on the ground, superintendents say.
Naaz Modan
March 27, 2020
When Troy Kilzer received the U.S. Department of Education’s guidance
Saturday night urging schools to continue learning for all students
despite closures, he thought, “Well, that was a no brainer.”
But the director of schools for rural Chester County Schools in
southwest Tennessee said providing accessible remote learning during
the coronavirus outbreak that has shut down his six schools is more
complicated.
“[Betsy DeVos’] assumption is that everybody sits with the same
opportunities with the internet, with all the resources supporting
technology, and thinks everyone is well supported with access,” Kilzer
said. “And that is just so narrow minded to think that everybody is in
that same shape.”
The guidance advised districts to opt for continued remote distance
learning while offering additional special education services like
counseling or instructional support over the phone or virtually. But
out of the approximately 2,800 students and their families who are
scattered across different providers' lines in Chester County, there
are pockets of communities for which getting high-speed internet access
and sometimes even phone services is out of the question.
Although the district has 2,900 devices ready for use, the nuances of
provider and city politics, high costs and geographical challenges make
it nearly impossible to use them in an equitable way.
“It’s kind of like taking one step forward and 10 steps back,” he said,
adding having the devices to use but spotty-to-no-internet and phone
connection for families is “like having a TV that you don’t plug in.”
While many families rely on the local provider, Aeneas, for high-speed
internet, the company only serves within the city limits. Many of the
district's families live outside that boundary, Kilzer said, meaning
they depend on other providers like AT&T for access.
And, he added, those companies are much slower and more costly for even middle-to-upper-class families to be able to afford.
Hotspots 'still won't work'
While coronavirus-related closures have renewed a push to close the
connectivity gap for communities like Chester County, Kilzer feels
those initiatives are “disconnected” from the reality on the ground.
A proposal unveiled this week in the U.S. House of Representatives
would funnel $2 billion into extra Wi-Fi hotspots for school and
library use. Another proposal, the Homework Gap Trust Fund Act,
introduced by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) could also get
connectivity funds into schools upon its passage "very quickly," his
office said.
With the funds that could be immediately mobilized if that legislation
passes, Jessica Rosenworcel, a member of the Federal Communications
Commission, said the connectivity gap could be closed “virtually
overnight.” Policy analysts and consultants agree the funds would make
a dent in addressing the homework gap.
Bottom of Form
But even if these initiatives were to pass, there are some places where
hotspots “still won’t work,” said John White, who was deputy assistant
secretary for rural outreach at the U.S. Department of Education during
the Obama administration and now offers consulting services with rural
school districts around the country.
This is the case for families in Polk County School District, another
rural district in southeast Tennessee. Supervisor of Secondary
Instruction Jason Bell said a Verizon Innovative Learning Schools grant
that allowed 1:1 iPad access and 5GB of data per month in the
district’s middle grades three years ago didn’t pan out as planned
because students lived in areas without towers.
This means even with an iPad and a data plan, access for those students was out of the question.
And when the district explored the possibility of putting up Verizon
towers years earlier, geographical challenges — specifically, a
national forest that makes up approximately 65% of the district — got
in the way.
Now, Verizon has bumped up access for the district’s middle school
students from 5GB of data a month to 30GB during the coronavirus
outbreak. The company and many others, such as AT&T, which FCC
Chairman Ajit Pai has recently pushed to provide hotspots for schools,
are offering similar discounted rates or expanded services nationwide
to support remote learning.
“I am pleased with the responses I have received,” Pai said in a letter
responding to Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D-Washington) request to address
the homework gap, citing providers that have increased broadband speeds
and are offering it for free for up to two months.
Absent from the letter is a mention of towers for areas where hotspots,
higher speeds and discounted rates still don’t solve the bigger problem.
“Folks just don’t have access to that,” Bell said. “If it’s somewhere
where they literally can’t get it, it’s not a quick fix right there ...
I wish we had set it up before this [pandemic] happened.”
For Kilzer, towers, which he says could cost the district “hundreds of
thousands of dollars,” are out of the question as well. “I can’t just
drop that much money when the main share of our resources are
primarily-state funded and are coming to support our existing teachers,
principals, support staff,” he explained.
While Kilzer said providers in his area are considering expanding
services, those plans would take advantage of existing towers and maybe
add lines to water towers to extend connectivity. “It’s not
cost-neutral in any fashion,” he said. “And we don’t have the resources
to drive that shift.”
Connectivity maps 'totally inaccurate'
Another part of the problem is that the federal government still
doesn’t have a complete picture of which rural families do or don’t
have access.
According to a report released Monday by the National 4-H Council and
Microsoft, 20% of teenagers living in rural areas of the U.S. do not
have access to high-speed, broadband internet, and 31% of U.S.
households do not have a broadband connection.
Almost half of rural teens surveyed said they’ve struggled to complete
homework due to slow internet. They were also less likely to feel like
they belong or to be involved in social causes in their community.
Other reports show varying numbers in terms of household access.
“It's almost like you can never get a straight answer because it’s so
hard to label what a rural district is,” Bell said, adding he has seen
reports vary in how they define rural districts. “I think that skews
that data sometimes.”
In an FCC subcommittee hearing earlier this month, Rosenworcel admitted
“it’s a fact that the FCC’s broadband maps are totally inaccurate.” The
maps are supposed to document where access is lacking.
“At the crux of the issue is one thing: The federal government
does not collect that data,” said Karen Cator, the president and CEO of
Digital Promise, who also led the Office of Education Technology at the
Education Department Department President Barack Obama's first term.
“If they updated those maps, then we would have a better sense of where
we are.”
The department does not collect data on community connectivity, either.
With schools learning from home for the foreseeable future, this could
prove to be a problem.
“What’s happening right now is the country is facing what we have
previously known as the homework gap, but now it’s not just homework —
it’s the whole educational experience,” Cator said.
Solutions or 'Band-aids' on the problem?
For now, rural districts are doing everything from making phone calls
to publishing letters in the newspaper to get the word out to families
about meal distribution services and the use of traditional packets
during distance learning, which in many areas is being made optional
rather than mandatory due to unequal access.
Workarounds for families without access includes driving long distances
to sit in the parking lots of libraries or McDonald's restaurants,
where they can connect to the internet from their cars. But “that is
not conducive to do the work,” according to Kilzer.
Allen Pratt, executive director of the National Rural Education
Association, feels that is putting a “Band-aid on the situation.” And
with shelter-in-place orders already in many states, even that remedy
might not be possible for much longer.
“If we treat [connectivity] as a utility service, that’d be much more helpful,” Pratt said.
In Dundee Community Schools, located in southeast Michigan,
Superintendent Eddie Manuszak said even with three providers
triangulating in the area, there are still some “dead spots” in his
district that don’t have access. Extending coverage to those areas
through the providers would have cost an extra $28,000 annually.
“It’s not cheap,” he said.
The lack of towers, Manuszak said, is a problem districts in the
northern peninsula of the state face. A recent Michigan State
University report found approximately half of the students in the
state's rural areas don't have high-speed internet access.
In the meantime, Dundee Community Schools has opted for Chromebooks,
preferring the brand for its ability to save work even when offline and
then sync once connected.
Others are trying to make do with what they can afford and are sending
paper materials home alongside meals through bus delivery routes.
Grab-and-go locations for pickup, considering long and winding roads in
some areas, are not possible for some.
“We have just made recommendations to the families to read with their
kids, do some math, with the expectation that we’re probably only
addressing the small number of folks that have internet access,” Kilzer
said. “We are feeling our way in the dark right now.”
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