In urban areas, we often take for granted the availability of Wi-Fi everywhere we go — from our homes to our workplaces, dentist offices, and favorite coffee shops. Once you move outside the city and suburbs, though, Wi-Fi is much harder to find, and families are much less likely to have connectivity at home. This is true in rural communities across the country, including Alaska. Due to our state’s vast size, building infrastructure is logistically and economically challenging. Lack of access to connectivity for those living off the road system has further divided urban and rural schools, exacerbating the existing digital divide and homework gap.
To help close that gap for students, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel put forth a proposal to leverage federal funding to support the installment of Wi-Fi on school buses. This proposal would enable school districts to apply for funding via the E-rate program, which provides federal funds to schools, libraries, and consortia for the purpose of supporting telecommunications solutions, equipment, and infrastructure. The E-rate program offers applicants a discount of between 20% to 90%. The exact percentage is calculated based on the number of students eligible for free and reduced lunch. In Alaska, the majority of schools are eligible for some level of E-rate funding. If this proposal is enacted, most schools in our state will be eligible to apply for funds to install Wi-Fi on school buses.
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During the COVID pandemic, school districts and counties have experimented with adding Wi-Fi to buses to create mobile hotspots. Wi-Fi enabled buses were assigned to low-income areas to provide free connectivity to impoverished and disadvantaged families. For example, two buses in Pierce County, Washington, were retrofitted to serve as mobile hotspots in 2020. Prior to the pandemic, California’s Coachella Valley school district leveraged eight of its school buses as mobile hotspots to help students with schoolwork. Projects like these help mitigate the impact of lack of connectivity on students attempting to do homework after school or in virtual classroom environments. In rural Alaska, a mobile hotspot on a school bus could be especially valuable for students in remote communities.
As the service provider to more than 200 schools and libraries across Alaska, GCI fully supports this effort to close the homework gap and bring Wi-Fi connectivity closer to the students’ homes. We think that this proposal will be hugely beneficial both to urban areas on the road system and to rural areas where local school districts operate small fleets of buses. In communities without existing school buses, however, districts may need to consider purchasing weather-appropriate vehicles, such as ATVs or snowmachines, to serve a similar purpose. It remains to be seen how and when this proposal will be implemented and what the specifications will be for the services. However, we at GCI Education remain committed to serving schools across the state and will explore the development of an appropriate solution if this proposal is enacted.