More than 20 Fresno school neighborhoods will get free internet from FUSD. Here’s how
More internet is coming to south Fresno thanks to the Fresno Unified School District’s new private internet service.
On Friday, district officials and their technology partners gathered at Gaston Middle School to announce the installation of 15 private LTE towers that will support thousands of users in the neighborhoods more than 20 schools.
The effort is part of the district’s push to close the so-called “digital divide” that has disrupted education for students from lower-income homes throughout Fresno — and the rest of the nation.
Fresno Unified Superintendent Bob Nelson called internet connection one of the “civil rights of our age.”
“Just like the airport permanently changed following 9-11,” said Nelson, schools will also be permanently altered by the shift to digital technology and remote learning spurred on by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Devices are never going out of the hands of our teachers, our students again post-pandemic,” he said.
With district’s private internet service, ‘learning does not stop’
Earlier this year, multiple families told The Bee’s Education Lab that their children were still struggling to keep up with homework and take online tests, more than a year into the global pandemic, in large part because of connectivity issues.
Many families cannot afford to pay service providers for better connections. A new study by the Education Superhighway shows that 1.55 million California households with broadband access can’t afford the service.
The district’s private LTE network, dubbed “Connect2Learn,” will reach up to 10,000 students and their families within a half-mile to one-mile range of schools in southeast and southwest Fresno.
A “huge number” of families in Fresno Unified make $10,000 or less annually, said Nelson. As of late 2019, one-quarter of Fresno County homes were without internet.
“The only price point that’s appropriate for them for internet services is zero dollars. So that’s what we’re trying to provide here today,” said the superintendent.
The project cost $1.7 million plus the cost of the hotspots, which was not disclosed. Funding for the project came from the Emergency Connectivity Fund and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, said Nelson.
The rollout of the district’s private LTE network began on Oct. 18.
Gaston Middle School principal Courtney Curtis welcomed Friday’s announcement.
“Over the past year and a half, we’ve heard from a lot of our families that they didn’t necessarily have reliable access to the internet,” said Curtis, even if they had devices.
Curtis added that all 48 Gaston Middle School teachers have agreed to do online learning, so if students need to go home for quarantine, they’re able to log on for all of their classes.
“With this new resource,” said Curtis, “learning does not stop.”
Other Central Valley districts respond to the digital divide
Fresno is one of many California school districts working to tackle the digital divide in their communities.
In September, the Madera Unified school board approved a contract with Tilson Technology to build cell towers around the city of Madera, a project that will cost the district over $2.8 million.
Madera Unified has approximately 20,000 students, about 1,000 who live in “desert” areas, according to Joe Halford, director of Information Technology at Madera Unified.
The district will put towers in five sites around Madera Unified, Halford said. The school sites that will receive an internet tower are Dixieland, Berenda, La Vina, Eastin Arcola, and the transportation yard.
Earlier this year, Comcast announced that it would boost connection speeds for households participating in the company’s low-Income Internet Essentials program, but according to Halford, relying on private internet companies is not enough.
“I think the way I look at it is that, with companies like AT&T or Comcast, they really look at what’s their ability to make a profit in particular areas. Some of these areas in the community, they don’t feel like they can make a profit investing,” Halford said. “These are our students that live in these areas, so we need to invest in our students in these areas.”
Kings County has already launched their own internet service, KingsNet, which they provide for any school families in a Kings County public or private schools, as well as for staff, teachers, school board members, graduates of Kings County high schools currently in college, and for Kings County employees.
Fresno school communities getting free internet from FUSD
While the LTE towers will be built at 15 schools, they will service more than 20 schools including:
Addams Elementary
Anthony Elementary
Ayer Elementary
Bakman Elementary
Calwa Elementary
Columbia Elementary
Computech Middle School
Edison High
Gaston Middle School
Greenberg Elementary
Hidalgo Elementary
Jackson Elementary
Jefferson Elementary
Lowell Elementary
Roosevelt High
Rowell Elementary
Sequoia Middle School
Sunnyside High
Tehipite Middle School
Terronez Middle School
Vang Pao Elementary
Winchell Elementary
Yokomi Middle School
Yosemite Middle School
This story was originally published November 5, 2021 at 4:14 PM.
