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any students return from summer break and anxiously await the stories and tales from their fellow students about what transpired. But students in Fortville, Indiana learned something
different from their summer experience that has bled into the new school year: Te benefit of Wi-Fi modems on their school buses. When students board the buses owned by Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation, their drivers supply them with a four-digit code that allows them to have internet access. Trough August, the district had installed Wi-Fi on all 38 of its school buses. More and more schools are following suit as both students and schools see benefits. Te school bus not only provides the students with the ability to work on class assignments during long routes or activity trips but also a link from each bus to transportation manage- ment to determine location and share data such as video. “Wi-Fi on buses has the potential to change the way transpor- tation departments operate,” explains Kevin Easley, director of transportation for Raytown (Missouri) School District in Raytown, which implemented Wi-Fi last year. “Once a live connection to the internet is established you open up options like live video feeds, GPS tracking and other features using the same stream of data. Tis is all in addition to the obvious benefit of adding educational minutes to the student’s day. During a six-month pilot period, Easley said Raytown added 4,200 hours of educational time to student days by allowing them to work on assignments on the bus. And busy students make for quieter, less distracting routes. “Drivers of our pilot buses saw a reduction in misbehavior
resulting in 48-percent decrease in conduct forms going to the schools,” he adds.
WI-FI AND THE EXTENDED SCHOOL DAY Gary Lambert is the director of 21st Century Learning for the
Beekmantown Central School District in West Chazy, New York. He also heralds the merit of Wi-Fi access as a means of not only oc- cupying students, but also turning the school bus into an extended digital classroom. His district used funds from the state’s Extended Learning Time grant to implement Wi-Fi during the 2015-2016 school year. Te grant sought to provide additional learning and growth opportunities for students by lengthening the school day. “After giving it much thought, we recognized that one way that
we could potentially capitalize on the time that students already were spending on the school bus was to equip some of our buses as a pilot with Wi-Fi access,” says Lambert. “Students who normally spent unproductive times on long bus trips to and from school as well as sporting events could now use that time to complete assignments. In a very real sense, the bus would now truly be an extension of the digital classroom.” Te district started with six buses as part of a pilot program called the SmartBus initiative, and it then added another six within that same year. “By the start of this current school year, all 24 of our normal active bus fleet will be equipped with the same Wi-Fi
Raytown Public Schools in Missouri uses Wi-Fi not only for onboard student learning but also to transfer vehicle data.
capabilities,” he adds. “Our veteran drivers have informed us that they have noticed an improvement in student behavior as a result of them having something that is of value to them to do while on the bus.” Parents, too, are taking notice. Lamberts adds that many
are voicing their appreciation of the district utilizing otherwise wasted time on the school bus for completing homework assignments. “Although there were several initiatives that all contributed to positive outcomes over the last two school years, we believe that improved students attendance, reduced student discipline and improved student achievement can all be attributed, at least in part, to the SmartBus initiative,” he says. McAfee, the globally recognized computer security software company, has compiled an arsenal of research about the web surfing habits of everyone, including students. It found that more than half of students—57 percent—spend three or more hours per day using an internet-connected device during school hours for school-specific work. “Enabling Wi-Fi on school buses gives students the option of
working on homework while riding the bus. In rural areas of the country, where those bus rides can be upwards of 45 minutes to an hour long, leveraging the ride home to do homework may increase the likelihood of homework completion,” says Candace Worley, vice president and chief technical strategist for McAfee. “Tere are not nearly as many distractions on a school bus as there are in the home environment.” Todd Krautkremer is a senior vice president for strategy and corporate development at Cradlepoint, a Silicon Valley-based provider for Wi-Fi on buses. He also concurs that offering bus Wi- Fi to students can make them as productive traveling to and from school as they are in their classrooms. “Tis is especially true for more impoverished communities
where children face many challenges at home that distract from homework, including lack of internet access,” says Krautkremer. “Teachers benefit from internet Wi-Fi on the bus in several ways.
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