to purchase the systems. The state department of education also installed safeguards on the Wi-Fi devices, so students can only access approved websites using a school district issued device. He added that his district is not concerned about students conduct- ing inappropriate web searches using their personal cellphones. Delano, however, confessed that
Coalinga-Huraon has experienced some instances of cyber bullying when using school bus Wi-Fi. But so far, she added, her department has been able to quickly address any incident. Kajeet also supplies Wi-Fi solu-
tions for school districts nationwide. Michael Flood, the company’s vice president of strategy, shared that school bus Wi-Fi is an easy solution to provide broadband access to the community. “Ideally every student would have broadband anywhere they are,” he
commented. “… But that’s just not the reality that we’re faced with, and in fact the challenge of getting broad- band access to every single student, wherever they might be is such a large challenge.” He explained that once a net-
work is installed on a bus, that same connection can be used for other technologies including security cameras, student tracking and tem- perature screening. “Our solution relies on the cellular
networks, so if there is no cellular connectivity in an area, we’re not go- ing to have any service either,” Flood added. “However, that being said, there are some advantages that we have. One of them is we can actually use multiple carriers in a bus.” He said another way Kajeet can
combat the lack of service in rural areas is the solution from Cradle- point utilizes an externally mounted antenna with higher gain and high-
er power than a cellphone While the funding aspect remains
a large concern for school districts, Flood noted there is current legislation in Congress that would make school buses eligible for funding under the E-rate program through the Federal Communications Commissions. Cur- rently the funding is only available to provide affordable broadband access in classrooms and libraries. He said language from those
bills was also incorporated into the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HE- ROES) Act, which passed the House in June. Flood noted that it is his un- derstanding that the same language is not incorporated into the Senate’s Health, Economic Assistance, Liabil- ity Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act. But at press time, Congress had yet to reconcile the HEROES Act and HEALS Act into a new federal coro- navirus stimulus. ●
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44 School Transportation News • SEPTEMBER 2020
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