For some students, no school means no connection at home

In the days before the COVID epidemic, students at Francis Marion School in Perry County, Alabama could do homework in the parking lot after classes, because the school WiFi connection was strong enough outside. But with the local shelter-at-home order, many have lost a lifeline to the internet.

In the rural Perry County located in the middle of Alabama, the median salary is about $23,000 per year, and not everybody can afford a computer or the internet.

“Almost all students at the school rely on free or reduced lunch,” said Dr. Cathy Trimble, the principal of Francis Marion School. “In very rural areas about three or four miles away from the school, there is no internet access at all.”

After spring break in late March, Trimble and her staff called every student to make sure whether everyone could participate in distance learning with adequate equipment.

“We found a disproportionately higher number of students do not have Internet access,” Trimble said.

Schools in rural America are not the only ones facing problems of home teaching during the pandemic. In late April, schools across 32 states, 3 U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia remain closed until the end of this academic year, affecting about 55.1 million students, according to Education Week statistics. And there is no indication of exactly when schools will reopen. Schools were not scheduled to reopen in the first phase of guidelines for reopening, issued by President Trump on April 16.

That is a problem for students who are forced to study at home but do not have their own computers or a connection to the internet. “We don’t feel confident you have one to one technology with a device as well as connectivity,” said Meria Carstarphen, the superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools. “It’s not one or the other thing, you have to have both.”

Carstarphen said more than 56% of pre-K and kindergarten students in her district had not logged on to the virtual learning system. The demand for connectivity and devices of around 40,000 students cannot be met.

“We are going to use this crisis to get policymakers at the local state and national level to focus on the homework gap,” said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel of the Federal Communications Commission.

Approximately 12 million children suffer from the homework gap due to a lack of high-speed Internet access, according to data from the Senate Joint Economic Committee. Children in the homework gap cannot finish their homework online or remotely, which would widen inequality among some low-income communities.

To stop students without high-speed Internet falling behind, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission waived Lifeline Program rules that could result in de-enrollment of subscribers to help low-income consumers get through this pandemic. Since 2016, the Federal Communications Commission has included broadband to the Lifeline Program.

Some Internet service providers like Xfinity, AT&T and T-Mobile have joined the Keep Americans Connected plan, with providing free WiFi hotspots and unlimited data to everyone in 60 days.

Deploying WiFi school buses is a temporary innovative solution. School buses equipped with high-speed Internet used to allow students to do their homework during the long commuting journey. Now, these school buses are set up in the parking lots of school districts, which provide WiFi hotspots and stable Internet connection to kids who cannot engage with distance learning at home, when they sit near to these school buses.

“Now South Carolina is deploying 3,000 buses with mobile WiFi hotspots to help kids in remote area access learning that way,” Besty DeVos, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, said in a statement.

The WiFi school bus program is in an early stage, available in only a few states. Rosenworcel said the idea of school WiFi buses originated in California, and the idea spread across the country. But she said deploying WiFi-equipped school buses is only a short-term solution for dismissing the homework gap.

Without WiFi-equipped school buses, Trimble has to ensure that every student who lacks access to the Internet receives hard copy homework packets every week, including reading materials and assignments.

“We are still waiting for hotspots,” Trimble added. “No one in the educational community should be viewing the Internet access as a luxury.”