Rural students struggle to study online without Broadband
When Gov. Tom Wolf ordered Pennsylvania schools to move to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring, local school officials knew there were going to be challenges.
One of the biggest issues for schools in Butler County is one that has plagued districts across the state — Pennsylvania's lack of rural broadband internet.
“There's definitely an equity issue with kids, especially rural kids, to get high-speed internet,” said Tom Samosky, superintendent of Moniteau School District.
“In the springtime, we had a lot of concern because we're not a one-to-one school district, which means we didn't have devices for every child,” he said.
Samosky said Moniteau had to work to both provide students with devices, Chromebooks or iPads, and make sure the students had the internet access necessary to use them.
“We had a significant need,” Samosky said. “Some areas we know do not have cable or good reach for Wi-Fi.”
Broadband internet is defined by the Federal Communications Commission as having download speeds of at least 25 megabytes per second (mbps) and upload speeds of at least five mbps.Expanding broadband internet to rural Pennsylvania is one of the major goals of Wolf's Restore Pennsylvania initiative.The governor's office has estimated 520,000 rural Pennsylvanians do not have broadband internet, and it could cost up to $715 million to spread broadband across the state.“The government can throw money around and we can certainly help, but it doesn't happen overnight,” said Allen Hassler, general manager of Armstrong Butler.Hassler said connecting rural areas to reliable internet requires time, careful planning and money.“We want to make sure we would be connecting people, not just a bunch of trees.” Hassler said of expanding service to rural areas.Hassler said Butler County is pretty good in terms of internet connectivity, but admitted that there are problem areas.“We kind of scrambled (in the spring) to help get connected the people that need to get connected, but there are doughnut holes where we can't do anything.”
Samosky said providing students with access to the internet was one of the most important undertakings in moving to remote learning.“We problem solved from using cellular phones to hot spots and we got it all done in two weeks,” Samosky said.Samosky said the school district also received some help from companies such as Armstrong and AT&T.Hassler said Armstrong has been in contact with every school district in its coverage area offering help, but there was only so much that can be done.David McDeavitt, superintendent at Allegheny-Clarion Valley School District, said the district resorted to giving out paper packets with school lessons and assignments to the students who could not get on the internet.“It's not terrible sending out the packets, but the issue is with immediate response and feedback,” McDeavitt said. “It would be like if you have a bad golf swing and you never get feedback to fix it, you'll end up stuck with it. It's the same thing with the students, if they can't get immediate response and feedback, they can't fix mistakes.”The Karns City Area School District also used paper packets, because one third of students lacked a school-issued device, according to Superintendent Eric RitzertRitzert said getting the paper packets back from students was an issue.“The packets were the bare minimum of what we could do,” Ritzert said. “We're trying to do away with the packets (for this year), but we'll have the option if any families decided that's what they want.”
With the whole summer to prepare for this upcoming school year, Moniteau, A-C Valley and Karns City all worked to resolve the problems they faced in the spring.All three districts purchased enough Chromebooks to be one-to-one — one device for every student.All three districts also sent a survey out to parents so the districts could determine how many students do not have reliable access to the internet.Samosky said Moniteau delivered 600 laptops to students over a two-day period.“After going through those issues last year with COVID, we're much more prepared,” said Samosky.Of Moniteau's just under 1,200 students, Samosky said 20% have chosen to take online classes this fall.The district also pushed its start date back from Tuesday to Wednesday to give teachers one more day to familiarize themselves with the technology they will be using.Of its 1,325 students, Ritzert said Karns City found out about 12% of households did not have an internet connection.In response, Ritzert said the school district purchased about 20 Wi-Fi hot spots from T-Mobile that it can lend out to families who need them.Karns City also improved its on-campus internet capacity, meaning students could connect to the network and do their work from the school's parking lot, if need be.“Between (the T-Mobile hot spots) and the building spots we hope we have enough coverage to satisfy everybody's needs,” Ritzert said.At A-C Valley, McDeavitt said 10% of its 650 students have opted for online instruction, but the district gave teachers professional development this summer to help them better engage with students in the online environment.With poor cellular service along the Clarion and Allegheny rivers, McDeavitt said the use of Wi-Fi hot spots was not a viable option for most of their families.Like Karns City, A-C Valley also added hot spots to its school building, but with the district covering nearly 110 square miles, McDeavitt said returning to school in the evening to log onto the network also is not a viable option for some families.McDeavitt said he has started asking county commissioners and state politicians to consider spending CARES funds to increase Pennsylvania's rural broadband access.As far as the 2020-21 school year goes, however, Moniteau, A-C Valley and Karns City all said they are better prepared and more confident now than they were in the spring.“We're in a lot better position this time because we have the devices,” Ritzert said. “If we need to go remote this time, it will be a better experience for families.”
