With lack of internet access remaining a obstacle to education for a thousand New Britain students, a new plan will deploy wi-fi from vehicles across the city.
The school district has announced that it,
in partnership with Schaller Auto, will be deploying dozens of vehicles equipped with Wi-Fi hotspots throughout New Britain to provide internet access for students who have not been able to regularly engage in online learning, known as Continued Educational Opportunities (CEO).
“Our primary goal during this time,” said schools Superintendent Nancy Sarra, “is to ensure that our students are engaged with their teachers, but unfortunately, many students have been unable to do so because they can’t connect to a Wi-Fi network.”
The school district says that it has created, “2,700 virtual classrooms,” using Google Classroom since March 30, 2020, including 90% of its students. But the district says that, “there are still more than one thousand students (about 10%) who have found it challenging to connect due to the lack of internet access in their homes.”
The temporary solution that the school district was able to achieve, Sarra said, was to acquire wi-fi hotspots. But, she said, “we still needed a method to distribute the internet into the neighborhoods.
“That,” she said, “is where Art Schaller stepped in, graciously offering to utilize his vehicles and staff to help us ensure that all our students have access to the internet for the remainder of this school year.”
“When I heard that there were more than 1,000 students who did not have internet access,” Schaller said, “I knew right away that we had to do something to help.”
“Now,” Schaller said, “thanks to our staff who have volunteered to deploy Wi-Fi to city neighborhoods for the remainder of the school year, these students will be able to receive the same education their peers are getting. We are incredibly proud and thankful for this opportunity to help the school district.”
The school district says that it, “is currently in the process of acquiring the hotspots and will configure them to require passwords to connect. This information will be communicated to those families without internet access, which will allow them to use both school-distributed devices as well as family-owned devices.”
“Once the networks are configured and installed in the vehicles,” said the school district, “staff from Schaller Auto will drive to neighborhoods lacking internet access, which were identified through surveys and internal data. They will remain there Monday through Friday during specific parts of the school day. These timeframes will be conveyed to families, so they know when they can connect.”
The school district says that it is expected that the wi-fi hotspots will be in place by mid-May.
