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ust as school buses and drivers stepped up to deliver meals to students in need when the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to shut their doors in


March, student transportation is once again being called into action to provide alternate services and meet the challenges faced by districts. While many school districts na-


tionwide were still on the fence last month as to their startup plans, one challenge remains at the forefront of all educators’ minds. If there is one thing that the forced virtual learning taught them in March, it’s that not all students have access to internet and computers or other devices. A study conducted by the Federal


Communications Commission last year found that 21.3 million Ameri- cans don’t have access to broadband coverage. Consumer advocate BroadBandNow says that figure could be double, as its study published in February suggests 42 million Amer- icans don’t have access. Meanwhile, a survey conducted by the nonprofit Common Sense Media reported that one in five urban teachers said most of their students don’t have the home internet access they need to com- plete their homework. “School bus Wi-Fi has provided


a nice Band-Aid or a temporary solution to help those students without internet access at home,” said Jeff Sural, director of broadband infrastructure at the North Carolina Department of Information Tech- nology. The agency is working with the state’s department of public instruction to provide more perma- nent solutions for students that don’t have internet access. That is a future project. For now, he said equipping school buses with Wi-Fi remains a vital option to bridging the digital divide.


“When this pandemic hit and the schools decided to close, I think across the nation not just in North Carolina we we’re all caught flat-foot- ed,” Sural explained. “Some of us that


have been working in this world have been preaching for some time that we have what we call a homework gap.” He noted that this divide stems from the amount of online assignments teachers are expecting children to do at home and the lack of access some students have. And while that issue is nothing new, he explained that the pandemic really brought it to the forefront. “It really highlighted the true


nature of the problem,” Sural added. “And so now we’re not only dealing with basic internet connection … but also quality of service and bandwidth issues, making sure that families have sufficient, reliable and afford- able internet service, so the parents can work from home and the kids can go to school from home.” He observed that not only do


students need online access for their schoolwork, parents need to be able to do banking, file unemployment claims, and even do their grocery shopping. He said the apparent need for technology grew exponentially as the pandemic took its toll. “We looked for those solutions that


we knew existed, that were proven and those that could be implemented quickly,” Sural explained. “School bus Wi-Fi was just one of those [solu- tions]. Individual hotspots going to students’ homes was another one.” Sural noted that an initiative began


when AT&T offered to make a finan- cial donation to help secure Wi-Fi devices that would enable the school bus to take internet connectivity to students. Since then, he said other companies have also contributed funds. The result is installing the technology in up to 280 of the nearly 13,000 school buses in the state. The Wi-FiRanger equipment was


donated to school districts based on the percentage of students esti- mated to not have internet service at home. Sural said school districts were responsible for working with the internet service provider to make sure they could get the service, pay for it and install the equipment.


“It’s been a very popular program,”


Sural said. He explained that for the remainder of last school year, districts parked the buses at public locations, parks, grocery stores or churches, where students or parents could come by and access the inter- net there for a short amount of time. Andrew Tate, director of mar-


keting at MITO Corporation, a WiFiRanger distributor, said the business model is different. MITO provides the hardware, and there is no charge after the initial purchase for any cloud-based administration software or carrier service. He added that the company is


currently focused on the WiFiRanger TETON C-19 with Core Router. Tate noted with this product, the user is able to bring their own service using a new or existing mifi device from any carrier and tether it to the indoor router via a USB plug. Tate explained that the indoor rout- er in most cases would be a hardware install but could also be powered by a 12V or AC adpater. Plugging the rooftop device into any school bus equipped with a core router imme- diately creates a hotspot. Tate added that he thinks most school districts will use choose this option, as school buses serve multiple functions. For example, he noted that while a bus delivers meals to students, it can also provide internet connectivity. The TETON C-19 LTE with 12V


plug works more as a plug-and- play model that can be used on or transferred between any school vehcile and instantly becomes a rooftop hotspot. Tate pointed out that while the manufacturer is cur- rently seeking Verizon cerification, districts wishing to use this product must utilize an AT&T data plan, as it currently only works with an AT&T LTE modem. In addition to North Carolina,


several other states are focusing on bridging the digital divide amid this new virtual learning education- al model. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced in early July that $48


www.stnonline.com 39


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