“The pandemic resulted in a national awareness of the importance of digital access for America’s students,” Abshire says. When advocating for bus Wi-Fi, Abshire considered students who are on buses for an hour; kids who are on field trips; and those traveling for athletic activities, sometimes out of state. She imagined “how beneficial it would be to extend the learning day.”
For many districts, she says, “E-Rate is essential. There are few school districts in this country that could afford connectivity if they didn’t have discounted services.”
In Santa Fe, School Bus Wi-Fi Is Part of a Digital Equity Strategy
Even before the FCC announced the E-Rate expansion, Santa Fe Public Schools (SFPS) had equipped all of its school buses with Wi-Fi using ECF funding, says Chief Information and Strategy Officer Neal Weaver.
“Our goal is to have internet available for students on every single bus,” he says. “For us, it’s about equity and expanding the availability of educational resources for students beyond the walls of the classroom.”
Facilitating internet access for students is especially important in northern New Mexico, where coverage is spotty in mountainous and outlying areas, Weaver says. With some students spending more than 40 minutes on a single bus ride, SFPS wanted to make that time productive.
The district piloted bus Wi-Fi not long after the pandemic. With the help of metrics from platforms such as Google for Education, they confirmed that students were, in fact, using that time for homework, says Weaver.
For him, connectivity outside the school aligns with the growing recognition that equity is multifaceted and requires multiple approaches, similar to the model presented in the U.S. Department of Education’s 2024 National Educational Technology Plan.
For example, students who have internet at home may not have sufficient bandwidth to complete their homework when other family members are online. Some of Santa Fe’s students live on Native American reservations, where internet access remains slow or nonexistent.
RELATED: Girls Who Game brings cultural preservation to San Carlos Apache Tribe.
“There are so many factors we have to look at when we’re thinking about when, where and how students connect,” Weaver says. “Education is changing, student access is changing and our ability to meet student needs in as many ways as we can is the beginning to defining whether a school district is successful in its efforts to provide the best educational journey for our students.”
Logistically, deploying bus Wi-Fi was straightforward, Weaver says, but he recommends that districts test multiple systems. SFPS uses Kajeet, which manages wireless connectivity and switches to the strongest connection while buses are on the move.
“Programs like E-Rate, the Emergency Connectivity Fund and grants are so important for technology departments to look at and think about when trying to put together the best solutions for helping students connect,” Weaver says.
Suburban District Looks to Bus Wi-Fi to Enable Real-Time Communication
Just outside of St. Louis, the Fox C-6 School District received an ECF grant in December that will cover Wi-Fi routers and installation and setup for 97 buses, nearly its entire fleet.
While the connectivity will enable students to do schoolwork in transit, Chief Technology and Communications Officer JP Prezzavento sees another benefit: facilitating real-time communication with parents so they can quickly find out the status of a bus or a child.
“We get inquiries all the time about whether or not students, especially younger kids, got off the bus,” says Prezzavento. “The hope is we’re going to be able to provide a higher level of customer service to our families through internet connectivity.”
