Education Week - March 17, 2021 - 5

" We're not just building a short-term solution
with CARES Act funding.

Vanessa Solis/Education Week and Getty

MICHELLE BOURGEOIS, Chief Technology Officer, St. Vrain Valley School District

letter they'd sent to the giant telecom.
" Our students should not be penalized for having
the misfortune of living in a city served by your company, " they wrote.
In December, an agreement was finally struck-for
service that costs $29.99 per month, in a deal that
can apparently be terminated by the company with
60 days' notice. ( " I would like to thank City Manager
Augusts and Mayor Petty for their cooperation and
collaborative efforts, " a Charter spokeswoman said
in a January statement.)
Siefer of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance
said such struggles highlight the need for new thinking on how to get reliable high-speed internet to
America's hardest-to-reach families.
" The ISPs have been in charge for decades, " she
said. " What we're seeing right now is a recognition
that has not been successful. "

2. States step up, but face funding
deadlines of their own
Some state agencies have tried to help.
In Washington, for example, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) has so
far covered the cost of discounted internet service
for 32,000 families in 209 separate school systems
across the state. The price tag to date: $4.5 million,
all of which has come via the federal CARES Act.
OSPI has sent about 10 percent of that money directly to Comcast, Presidio, and Ziply Fiber, according to Dennis Small, the state's educational technology director. The rest has gone to reimburse school
districts across Washington that are paying those

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES
The massive shift to remote
and hybrid learning during
COVID-19 exposed wide gaps
in students' access to
broadband and quality online
learning materials. Read other
stories in this report.
The Big Pandemic Tech
Challenge: Reliable,
High-Quality Internet
Experiences for All
Acting FCC Chair:
The 'Homework Gap' Is an
'Especially Cruel' Reality
During the Pandemic
How to Expand Home
Internet Connectivity for K-12
Students Over the Long Haul

> edw.link/K12Connectivity

ISPs for service for low-income students.
Small believes the pandemic has cast a harsh
spotlight on long-festering digital inequities that
won't easily be erased.
" We definitely see this as a long-term need, " he
said.
The same is true in North Dakota, where the
state's Department of Public Instruction put up
$500,000 in CARES Act funds and worked along
with state information-technology officials and
numerous ISPs to ensure home connectivity for
mostly rural students.
Both states' agreements expire at the end of this
school year. Neither has long-term funding in place.
A new round of federal coronavirus-relief funds
approved by Congress and former President Donald Trump in December could help. So could the
new $7.6 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund and
the FCC's Emergency Broadband Benefit, which
covers up to $50 per month of broadband service
for eligible families (and more for those living on
tribal lands).
" It will help those who worry about choosing between paying a broadband bill and paying rent or
buying groceries, " said acting FCC Chairwoman
Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement after the program was adopted last month.
But for now, at least, the emergency benefit will
last only until the existing money runs out, or until
six months after the federal government declares
the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency,
whichever comes first.
It amounts to buying more time, said Marwell of
EducationSuperHighway.
" We'll make it through the end of this school year,
and there's a decent chance we make it to the end of
next school year, " he said. " But if we wait until then
to deal with the underlying problem, we're going to
have issues. "

3. Local districts and communities get
creative
Hanging on the wall of Michelle Bourgeois' office
in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains is a board
with four questions:
Is it supportable? Is it sustainable? Is it scalable?
Is it good for kids?
She believes the expanding broadband partnership between her school district and the City of
Longmont, Colo., checks all four boxes.
" We're not just building a short-term solution
with CARES Act funding, " said Bourgeois, the chief
technology officer for Colorado's 33,000-student
St. Vrain Valley Schools, north of Boulder. " I'm
super excited. "
The main source of such optimism is Longmont
Power & Communications, a nonprofit electric and
internet-services utility that operates one of the
country's 330 or so municipally-owned broadband
networks. NextLight, as the utility's broadband
service is known, offers some of the fastest internet

speeds in the nation. The all-fiber network was built
with $43 million in bond money, approved by voters in a 2011 ballot measure after a years-long fight
to repeal Colorado's industry-backed state law that
excludes local governments from building or owning broadband infrastructure.
Roughly two-thirds of Longmont internet customers now choose NextLight over commercial
providers such as Comcast and CenturyLink.
Even before COVID-19, Longmont Power &
Communications was providing the service for free
to several dozen Longmont families in need. After
the pandemic hit, the utility added a discounted option that now offers 100mbps speeds for $14.95 per
month. Both programs are open-ended, with no set
expiration date.
Now, Longmont Power & Communications and
the St. Vrain Valley Schools plan to go further. In
February, they received a $1.3 million state grant
to build a " mesh network " that officials hope will
eventually provide free wireless service to as many
as 6,200 St. Vrain Valley students, many of whom
are either homeless (and thus can't make use of
wireline connections to a specific building) or live
in apartment complexes or mobile-home communities where owners or managers refuse to bring
NextLight fiber on to their premises.
Other communities are undertaking similar experiments.
In Pittsburgh, Pa., for example, a nonprofit called
Meta Mesh Wireless Communities is working
with local universities on a pilot program called
Every1online. The group recently installed a wireless " super node " on top of the 535-foot tall Cathedral of Learning on the University of Pittsburgh's
campus; " repeater nodes " to amplify its signal atop
water and radio towers in surrounding communities; and small receivers on the outsides of roughly
450 homes served by three area school districts.
The project is " one way to begin to see Internet
access as a human right, " said Meta Mesh Wireless
Communities Executive Director Adam Longwill in
a November press release.
Such strategies are unlikely to supplant the private, for-profit internet service providers currently
dominating the market. Even in the areas served
by the St. Vrain Valley School District, NextLight
doesn't reach everyone; a local education foundation has covered the cost of Comcast Internet Essentials for about 70 area households, and the district obtained nearly 1,000 mobile hotspots, many
from wireless carrier T-Mobile. Those efforts were
recently extended for another six months.
Still, many advocates view public and nonprofit
internet service providers as offering an additional layer of connectivity for vulnerable families
that COVID-19 has proven America desperately
needs.
" It's important that everybody have equal and fair
access to high-speed internet, " said Valerie Dodd,
the director of Longmont Power & Communications. " Something has to change. "

EDUCATION WEEK | March 17, 2021 | www.edweek.org | 5

http://edw.link/K12Connectivity http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - March 17, 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - March 17, 2021