TOPEKA 鈥� It doesn鈥檛 take a lightning-quick internet connection to theorize income, education and geographic disparities underly Kansas鈥� digital divide.

But the nonprofit and nonpartisan Kansas Health Institute鈥檚 latest research demonstrated with online county-by-county maps that broadband deficits and computer ownership gaps plaguing Kansas were intertwined with social and demographic influences.

Thirty-one percent of low-income Kansas households making less than $20,000 annually didn鈥檛 have high-speed connections, KHI said. However, 4.5% of Kansas households earning more than $75,000 were in the same predicament in terms of broadband access.

Kaci Cink, an analyst with KHI, said Kansas families able to tie into reliable broadband were able to more efficiently download, browse and stream contents of the internet. KHI said the rise of a global digital economy and the lack of high-speed communication options continued to undermine Kansans relative to employment, education and health care.

鈥淜ansans use broadband to engage with health care providers and access health-related information, so not having connectivity can create barriers to health,鈥� Cink said. 鈥淎nd we are seeing this among populations that may need health care services the most.鈥�

KHI said one in 20 or 5.8% of Kansas households didn鈥檛 have a computer, smartphone or tablet. But Kansans with a bachelor鈥檚 degree in college where eight times more likely to have a computer than Kansans who didn鈥檛 earn a high school diploma.

Of Kansans age 65 or older, one in 10 or 11.8% didn鈥檛 have a computer to access the web. KHI said one in 10 Kansas households, or 12%, lacked broadband service.

KHI developed an to provide an overview of computer ownership and broadband availability in each of the state鈥檚 105 counties. The dashboard, based on 2022 information from the U.S. Census Bureau, provided breakdowns by age, race, ethnicity, employment, education and income.

For example, it revealed gaps among counties in terms of the percentage of households without a computer. A sample: Riley, 2.4%; Johnson, 2.8%; Sedgwick, 4.9%; Shawnee, 7.6%; as well as Jewell, 15.7%; Lincoln, 14.3%; Marshall and Neosho, 12%; Gove, 10.2%; and Wallace, 10%.

The dashboard chronicled county-by-county differences in broadband availability. The percentage without high-speed internet: Johnson, 5%; Riley, 9.5%; Sedgwick, 10.7%; Shawnee, 17.2%; as well as Lincoln, 26.2%; Gove, 24.2%; Jewell, 22.8%; Neosho, 19.6%; Marshall, 16.9%; and Wallace, 11.8%.

The challenge of responding to the state鈥檚 technological divide has been more difficult in rural communities due to insufficient infrastructure that elevated the cost of adding high-speed internet service.

Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, said delivering broadband to rural communities was 鈥渃ritically important for those communities to thrive.鈥�

To work toward closing the gap, the federal Affordable Connectivity Program operated from Dec. 31, 2021, to June 1. That program reduced the nation鈥檚 internet connectivity deficit by providing 23 million households with discounts on broadband services and computer purchases. An attempt to extend the federal initiative has been introduced in Congress, but not passed.

In 2023, Gov. Laura Kelly said Kansas received $452 million that would be dedicated to the program to expand broadband infrastructure in Kansas.

It followed the state鈥檚 2020 commitment to provide $85 million over 10 years to the Broadband Acceleration Grant for benefit of Kansas communities, especially in economically distressed regions.

In July, Kelly said acceleration grants of $10 million were awarded to a dozen internet providers, and that investment would be paired with $12.7 million in matching funds, for benefit of 14 rural Kansas counties.

鈥淏roadband drives innovation, unlocks potential and ensures everyone can participate in services essential for economic, educational and industrial growth,鈥� Kelly said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

Like most kids, Aahil Valliani has been frustrated by the filters that his school uses to block inappropriate websites. Often, he has no idea why certain sites are blocked, especially when his web browsing is tied to his schoolwork.

Many students in this situation find a way around their districts鈥� web filters. They access the internet on their phones instead, or use proxy servers or virtual private networks to essentially access a different, unfiltered internet. Aahil, searching for a more systemic solution, teamed up with his younger brother and father to start a company called Safe Kids, raise almost $2 million in venture funding, and design a better filter.

As The Markup, which is part of CalMatters, reported in April, almost all schools filter the web to comply with the federal Children鈥檚 Internet Protection Act and qualify for discounted internet access, among other things. Most schools The Markup examined used filters that sort all websites into categories and block entire categories at once. Others scan webpages for certain off-limits keywords, blocking websites on which they appear regardless of the context. In both cases, the filters are blunt tools that result in overblocking and sometimes keep kids from information about politicized topics like sex education and LGBTQ resources.

Aahil, now 17, points out that schools鈥� overly strict controls disappear as soon as kids graduate. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a recipe for disaster,鈥� he said. Kids, he contends, need to learn how to make good choices about how to use the internet safely when trusted adults are nearby so they are ready to make good decisions on their own later.

The Safe Kids filter turns web blocking into a teachable moment, explaining why sites are blocked and nudging students to stay away from them of their own accord. It uses artificial intelligence to assess the intent of a student鈥檚 search, reducing the number of blocks students see while conducting legitimate academic research. One example: if a student searches for Civil War rifles for a class assignment, Safe Kids would allow it. If a student tries to shop for an AK-47, it wouldn鈥檛. Other filters would block both.

The filter also keeps student browsing data private, storing only categories of websites accessed, not URLs or search terms themselves. And it works through a Chrome browser extension, which means students can鈥檛 simply get around it with a proxy server or VPN while using that browser.

Safe Kids got its start during the early COVID-19 lockdowns. Sitting around the dinner table with his father, a tech entrepreneur; his mother, a self-employed fashion designer; and his younger brother Zohran, a budding computer scientist, Aahil got his family to strategize how to help all the kids getting sucked into dark corners of the web and battling the mental health consequences of their internet use.

Their idea, building off of the invasive and ineffective filters the brothers saw in school, essentially puts better training wheels on the internet. Aahil said his father did a bit of hand-holding in these early days, helping find board members and angel investors, as well as the data scientists who would train the AI machine learning model behind the filter and psychologists who could craft and test the filter鈥檚 hallmark pop-ups directing students toward more appropriate browsing. The company also spent time and money getting their designs patented. Aahil has three patents under his name and Safe Kids has five.

As Aahil and his family were preparing to chase seed funding for Safe Kids, the ACLU of Northern California was demanding the Fresno Unified School District a product called Gaggle, which districts use to monitor students鈥� internet use, block potentially harmful content, and step in if student browsing patterns indicate they may need mental health supports. The problem, according to ACLU attorneys, was that Gaggle amounted to intrusive surveillance, trampling on students鈥� privacy and free speech rights.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation levied similar accusations against another web filter called GoGuardian after getting records from 10 school districts, including three in California, that revealed the extent of the software鈥檚 blocking, tracking and flagging of student internet use during the 2022-23 school year, when Aahil was piloting Safe Kids. Jason Kelley, a lead researcher on EFF鈥檚 GoGuardian investigation, , looked into Safe Kids in response to an inquiry by The Markup. Accustomed to pointing out how bad filters are, he offered surprised praise for Safe Kids, commending its focus on privacy, its open source code that offers transparency about its model, and its context-specific blocking.

鈥淭his is, really, I think, an improved option for all the things that we are generally concerned about,鈥� Kelley said.

So far, Safe Kids has not been able to break into the school market. Still, Aahil hopes to one day sign a contract with a school district, and he is marketing to parents in the meantime, offering them a way to put guardrails on their kids鈥� home internet use. While Safe Kids started out charging for its filter, Aahil said an open source, free version will be released next month.

One of the company patents is for a聽 鈥減ause, reflect, and redirect鈥� method that leans on child psychology to teach kids healthy browsing habits when they try to access an inappropriate website.

鈥淲hen kids go to a site the first time, we consider that a mistake,鈥� Aahil said. 鈥淲e tell kids why it鈥檚 not good for them and kids can make a choice.鈥�

For example, if a student tries to play games during a lesson, a pop-up would say, 鈥淭his isn鈥檛 schoolwork, is it?鈥� Students can click a 鈥渢ake me back鈥� button or 鈥渢ell me more鈥� link to get more information about why a given site is blocked. When students repeatedly try to access inappropriate content, their browsing is further restricted until they address the issue with an adult. If that content indicates a student might be in crisis, the user is advised to get help from an adult, and in a school setting, a staff member would get an automated alert.

The teen expects to keep building the company, even as he shifts his focus to college admissions this fall. A rising senior at the selective Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, one of the nation鈥檚 best public high schools, Aahil plans to major in business or economics and make a career out of entrepreneurship.

Safe Kids stands out in a web filtering market where products鈥� blunt restrictions on the web have barely become more sophisticated over the last 25 years.

Nancy Willard, director of Embrace Civility LLC, has worked on issues of youth online safety since the mid-1990s. She submitted testimony for the congressional hearings that resulted in passage of the Children鈥檚 Internet Protection Act in 2000 and describes the filtering company representatives that showed up as snake oil salesmen, selling a technology that addresses a symptom, not the root of a problem.

鈥淲e need to prepare kids to manage themselves,鈥� Willard said. When traditional filters block certain websites with no explanation, kids don鈥檛 learn anything, and they鈥檙e often tempted to just circumvent the software.

鈥淭his approach helps increase student understanding, and hopefully there鈥檚 a way also in the instructional aspects (to increase) their skills,鈥� she said about Safe Kids.

Students on Chromebooks in particular can鈥檛 circumvent Safe Kids and its design aims to keep them from wanting to. Now Aahil and his family just need to find buyers.

Kelley said he鈥檚 not surprised Safe Kids hasn鈥檛 been able to yet, given the 鈥渉ardening鈥� of school security and student safety efforts over the last decade. 鈥淲e鈥檝e gone from having cameras and some pretty standard filters to having metal detectors, and locked doors, and biometrics, and vape detectors in the bathrooms, and these much more strict filters and content moderating control software,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd all this is hard to undo.鈥�

This was originally published on .

Because Miranda Meza couldn鈥檛 afford a faster connection, the family was constantly at odds balancing the demands of online work and schooling. 

鈥淚 can’t be here trying to fix the internet or tell them to get on a camera when I’m on an important work call trying to make money for us to live,鈥� said Miranda Meza, a single mother of three boys.

Miranda Meza鈥檚 home internet constraints are part of a larger problem affecting thousands of low-income families in Los Angeles County, according to a from the California Community Foundation and Digital Equity LA coalition.

The report found Charter Communications, which operates Spectrum 鈥� the monopoly internet  provider serving 96.7% of Los Angeles county residents 鈥� consistently reserves its best offers for residents in wealthier neighborhoods, leaving low-income families paying more for the same or slower service.

For children nationwide, especially those from low-income families, the pandemic reinforced the crisis and scale of the as students with inequitable access to affordable and reliable internet scrambled to do .

After remote learning began in spring 2020, families resorted to extreme solutions to make sure their school age children had reliable WiFi. In August 2020 a Twitter photo of two young girls from Northern California sitting on the ground of a with their laptops for a connection and doing their online homework went viral. (Note: Spectrum does not provide service to this part of California and was not the family鈥檚 internet provider)

鈥淚t鈥檚 quite clear from the data and organizations we work with and families in these communities that there are discriminatory pricing practices from Spectrum,鈥� said Shayna Englin, the report鈥檚 lead author and director of the California Community Foundation鈥檚 .

鈥淭he way services are delivered鈥nd the way that differs from community to community has real implications for how effective all of our public interventions are going to be in terms of closing the digital divide,鈥� Englin said. 

The report found a resident in a neighborhood with a poverty rate of more than 30% would pay $70 per month for Spectrum鈥檚 standard internet service compared to a resident in a neighborhood with a poverty rate of less than 15% that would pay about $54 per month.

Similar service from AT&T was split 鈥渁bout evenly鈥� between high and low poverty neighborhoods for $65 per month, and Frontier was available for those in low poverty neighborhoods for $40 per month, according to the report.

Because of the inferior internet in Pomona, Miranda Meza said that the demand among low-income families for the free hotspots offered by the school was so high that she had to wait to get one for her sons.

鈥淚 tried to explain to their teachers that our internet isn鈥檛 the best and that鈥檚 when they would tell us to go to the school and get a hotspot,鈥� Miranda Meza said. 鈥淚 remember that we had to wait until the next round of hotspots towards the end of the school year which caused conflict with their teachers.鈥�

The limits to reliable internet access also exacerbated Miranda Meza’s children’s learning loss 鈥� especially for her son with a disability.

鈥淚n order for me to keep up with my son鈥檚 mental health he goes to online group therapy,鈥� Miranda Meza said. 鈥淪o us having internet issues has been a great challenge because he鈥檚 not anywhere near where he鈥檚 supposed to be.鈥�

Englin said lack of reliable, high-quality internet could have lifelong consequences for low-income children.

鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have to extend very far out to understand what the implications are for those kids who are going to have the most learning loss,鈥� Englin said. 鈥淜ids who fall behind when they’re in elementary school have difficulty catching up, and it has a lifetime impact in terms of what their opportunities are and what their economic mobility looks like.鈥�

Spectrum denounced the report鈥檚 鈥渇alse narrative鈥� with 鈥渃herry-picked comparisons of short-term discounts,鈥� said spokesperson Dennis Johnson in an emailed statement.

鈥淏y ignoring the fact that Spectrum has connected millions of households through the Affordability Connectivity Plan, or the fact that Spectrum doesn鈥檛 require contracts, the [California Community] Foundation undermines both its own legitimacy and the efforts by Spectrum and so many others in the community to help deliver equitable access to high-speed and reliable internet connections,鈥� Johnson wrote.

Johnson also criticized the California Community Foundation for making 鈥渘o attempt to work with Spectrum鈥resumably because its methodology and claims are misleading and easily challenged.鈥�

CEO Evan Marwell estimates about half of those families include school-age children. 

鈥淭he narrative is that it鈥檚 been about building infrastructure in rural America,鈥� Marwell said, but added, 鈥渁fter decades of investment, affordability is now the biggest problem.鈥� 

In 43 states, the inability to pay for internet service accounts for more than half of the digital divide 鈥� even in those with large rural populations, according to the report, entitled 鈥淣o Home Left Offline.鈥�

Congress included a $7.1 billion Emergency Broadband Benefit in the American Rescue Plan last March, but less than 17 percent of eligible households have signed up, the report said. A lack of awareness of the program, skepticism over whether the benefit will actually cover internet costs and confusing enrollment procedures are the primary obstacles to participation, the authors note.

Since the start of the pandemic, millions of students have missed out on learning because of insufficient internet access because they lack stable or strong-enough connections to complete tests, upload assignments and interact with teachers and classmates over Zoom. Problems with technology are among the reasons for high absenteeism rates among remote learners, an issue that has persisted this year with students in quarantine. Experts say states and communities need strong and targeted marketing campaigns to get wary families to take advantage of free and discounted programs.

The report comes as the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package 鈥� which includes $65 billion for broadband 鈥� awaits a vote in the House. The bill renames the benefit the Affordable Connectivity Fund and allocates $14.2 billion to make it permanent.

鈥楥an鈥檛 rely on volunteers鈥�

The federal benefit program primarily serves existing customers who have faced economic setbacks because of the pandemic 鈥� not those who have never subscribed to an internet provider, according to the report. That鈥檚 why it鈥檚 important, Marwell said, to have staff dedicated to getting students connected.

鈥淥ne of the big takeaways from the pandemic is you can鈥檛 rely on volunteers,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou need paid staff, and you need really specific data about who you are trying to sign up.鈥�

In Little Rock, Arkansas, Maddie Long is already doing that work.
On a break from finishing her master鈥檚 in Indigineous studies at the University of Kansas, she was working as a landscaper in Little Rock when she saw the opening for an fellow. Heartland Forward, a think tank focusing on the needs of states in the middle of the country, is funding the position to help reduce the digital divide.

Now Long attends community events, such as a recent vaccination clinic at the Guatemalan consulate, to talk to those who qualify and provide flyers about the program for the Little Rock School District to stuff in food pantry bags for families.

Parents, she said, are sometimes resistant because they鈥檝e heard the benefit will run out when the pandemic is over (That鈥檚 true unless the infrastructure bill passes). The program also includes a one-time $100 credit toward a device, but participants have to get it through their internet provider, which may not be participating in that part of the program

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that was set up in the most user-friendly manner,鈥� she said. 鈥淓very federal benefit has its own challenges.鈥�

鈥楢 real turn-off鈥� 

The Los Angeles Unified School District is trying another strategy 鈥� using the federal Emergency Connectivity Fund, another part of the American Rescue Plan, to pay for students鈥� at-home internet service. 

Tanya Ortiz Franklin, a Los Angeles school board member, said that while many internet providers launched discounted programs last year, parents would get turned down because of previous late payments or faced increased costs after trial periods. 

鈥淭hat was a real turn-off to a lot of high need families,鈥� she said.

The district was inspired by a , run by the nonprofit Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, that serves over 400 families in three low-income communities in the city. The district has now received responses from 22,000 parents who want to participate in the larger, districtwide program, when the contract is finalized, Franklin said. While the district promotes the Emergency Broadband Benefit, she doubts many families are participating.

鈥淚t鈥檚 another layer,鈥� she said. 鈥淎 lot of these things are super well-intentioned, but the implementation requires so much social work.鈥�

Students who often put up with dropped connections, broken devices or maxed-out wireless plans are also speaking out about improving access to Wi-Fi.

鈥淧eople talk about it, but nothing really gets done,鈥� said Marylin Terrazas, an 11th grader at Travis High School near Houston. She鈥檚 among the Fort Bend Independent School District students producing and moderating a live Nov. 17 broadcast organized by Connected Nation, a nonprofit focused on eliminating the digital divide. 鈥淚 thought this was a great way to spread the word that there are people who need help,鈥� she said.

Joey Dyrud-Lange, the district鈥檚 media production teacher, said lower-income students with parents and grandparents who 鈥渁ren鈥檛 necessarily the most educated on technology鈥� are especially at a disadvantage.

鈥淚 saw a huge gap in learning [last year], and it’s not the students鈥� fault,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey go to extreme lengths on their cell phones to try to access their learning.鈥�

The EducationSuperHighway report recommends 鈥渂roadband adoption centers,鈥� staffed with employees who can help parents enroll in the benefit program. Under the infrastructure bill, the broadband subsidy would drop from $50 a month to $30. With many internet companies already offering low-cost programs for $10 to $15 a month, that鈥檚 more than enough, Marwell said, for companies to not only cover their costs but offer faster internet speeds and even make a profit. 

鈥淭hey鈥檙e going to look at this and say, 鈥楴ow, we have 18 million potential customers. We need to build a business plan to get these people signed up,鈥欌�� Marwell said. 鈥淭he idea that we can do this is not a pipe dream.鈥�

The towers, which stand 60-to-80 feet tall, have been erected by the school district at  Dunbar High School, Morningside Middle School, Rosemont Middle School and Eastern Hills High School. 

One-quarter of students most in need of internet access have been connected. The remaining 75% of students will get internet service when phase two of the project begins in December. Zip codes that are underserved will be targeted, according to the district. 

The pandemic and its effects, including the rise of virtual learning, exposed the digital divide, particularly in communities of color. Those students lack wifi access, exacerbating the already existing racial achievement gap in many schools across the country. 

The towers are meant to help combat that problem in Fort Worth where an estimated 60,000 residents lack internet access. 

鈥淥ur towers are up and functional,鈥� said Chief Information Officer Marlon Shears in a statement. 鈥淲e are continuing to deploy service by getting modems to students in need. We also have begun the process to put up more towers, extending service into additional areas.鈥�

Voters approved funding the project in November 2020 through the Tax Ratification Election (TRE).

According to the 2019 Worst Connected Cities from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, Fort Worth ranked No. 245 out of 625 cities in terms of connectivity. The report, based on data from the 2019 American Community Survey, found that 11% of  Fort Worth households did not have broadband and nearly 28% of households lacked a cable, fiber optic line or DSL. This was an improvement over 2018, when 31% of households did not have cable, fiber optic or DSL. 

NDIA Executive Director Angela Siefer said 36 million U.S. households don’t have a home broadband subscription. Of the 36 million, 26 million are in urban areas. 

鈥淪o we know we have an infrastructure availability issue in rural areas,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd what we know in urban areas is even when the infrastructure is there, people don’t always subscribe. And why don’t people subscribe? It’s expensive, digital literacy issues, trust issues about getting stuck with large bills. 

鈥淪o there needs to be alternative solutions,鈥� Siefer continued. 鈥淎nd what some school districts are doing … is they’ve come up with an alternative solution, which is, you know what, we’re just going to build it ourselves.鈥�

That鈥檚 what Fort Worth is doing.  

Clay Robison, spokesman for Texas State Teachers Association, noted that most students in Texas are no longer learning remotely, but are back in classrooms. 

鈥淭he new Fort Worth towers should benefit students and teachers who are still involved in remote instruction,鈥� he said, adding students learn best with a teacher in the classroom.  

鈥淚f the Fort Worth district continues to provide wifi access. This will help students with their homework and studies at home and, we hope, help narrow the digital divide between low-income and more-fortunate students,鈥� he said, later adding: 鈥淢ost school districts were scrambling after the pandemic broke out to provide digital access to students who needed it. Some districts were more successful than others.鈥�

But the narrow, 45-day window for districts to apply comes in the middle of the summer as leaders are scrambling to prepare for a new school year and face a host of unknowns.

鈥淚 think a lot of schools are going to say, 鈥榃e can鈥檛 do it,鈥欌�� said Evan Marwell, CEO of nonprofit Education SuperHighway, a nonprofit working to improve at-home broadband service for students.

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If they don鈥檛 apply for the new , part of the American Rescue Plan, districts could miss out on critical funding at a time when demand for remote learning options this fall is increasing. While most say they鈥檙e committed to fully reopening, concerns about rising COVID-19 cases are prompting more parents to push for virtual learning. The question is whether students 鈥� especially those in lower-income homes 鈥� will still have to contend with glitchy Zoom sessions or getting kicked off line in the middle of submitting assignments.

Home internet access has increased substantially in recent years, but 11 percent of families still depend on mobile devices for service, according to released last month from New America and Rutgers University. Among those with at-home broadband service, more than half described their service as too slow.

A by the Consortium for School Networking, a professional group for district technology leaders, showed that almost three-quarters of respondents said they plan to apply for the new federal funds. But only 170 members took the survey. A spokeswoman for the Federal Communications Commission, which runs the program, said the agency doesn鈥檛 have data on how many districts have applied so far. Christine Fox, senior director of external relations at the Consortium, added that some districts are waiting for a second application window, but the FCC said there鈥檚 no guarantee there will be one.

鈥楥OVID numbers increasing鈥�

Arkansas is among the states where some districts are applying for the technology fund and seeing a growing demand for remote learning. Applications from districts that want to offer virtual academies have been pouring into the education department. In mid-June, Don Benton, assistant commissioner for research and technology, had received 125 requests. By last week, most of those had been approved, with at least another 75 pending.

Benton expected as much, with 鈥淐OVID numbers increasing 鈥� due the abysmal number of people getting vaccinated and taking the vaccination, social distancing, and precautions seriously.鈥� Less than half of the state鈥檚 vaccine-eligible population has had one dose, according to .

In other parts of the country, many districts decided to continue offering virtual learning to accommodate parent demand 鈥� even before COVID cases began to rise again. showed two-thirds of the nation鈥檚 top districts will offer virtual academies, and the Austin Independent School District in Texas, even its virtual learning program for elementary students outside the district.

The Harrison School District in northwest Arkansas is among those putting final touches on a connectivity fund application and planning to use the money for more hotspots.

Susan Gilley, the district鈥檚 executive director of federal programs, said she鈥檚 most concerned about students having reliable internet and those 鈥渢hat live so remotely that even cellular Wi-Fi is unavailable.鈥� The district is allowing remote learning for third grade and above.

The 2,700-student district supplied 100 families with hotspots last school year and plans to increase that to 1,000, Gilley said. The district also hopes to purchase 1,100 devices for students and outfit its entire fleet of 37 buses with Wi-Fi routers, up from eight last year.

But some experts want districts to think beyond devices.

鈥淒istricts for the most part have plenty of tools already,鈥� said Joseph South, chief learning officer at the International Society for Technology in Education.

The uncertainty about reopening means districts need to be ready to adapt to changing situations, he said. Even if schools don鈥檛 close completely this fall because of positive case rates, there have already been examples of students being .

Successful models, South said, 鈥渞equire an approach where technology is being used face-to-face in ways that are effective each day, but that also lay a foundation for a shift to more reliance on the technology if face-to-face engagement has to be curtailed.鈥�

Benton, in Arkansas, added that if districts are going to allow remote learning, he鈥檇 like them to give parents better information on how to keep students at home on track. A from the University of Missouri showed that the transition to remote learning put particular stress on Black families who often lacked reliable internet and the technological know-how to keep students connected.

鈥淲e can have the best technology, teachers and tools available, but without quality family engagement, we are missing a huge piece for student success,鈥� Benton said.

鈥楴ot all hotspots are equal鈥�

The Emergency Connectivity Fund is similar to an existing internet discount program for schools and libraries, known as E-Rate. Funds can cover the cost of devices, hotspots and routers on Wi-Fi-enabled buses. Larger districts with technology departments might be in a better position to develop strong plans and meet the program鈥檚 requirements, Marwell said. But others might just buy more hotspots because that鈥檚 easier than negotiating a plan with an internet provider to provide service to students鈥� homes.

In general, hotspots are only as good as the surrounding cell service, meaning they provide spotty connections in a lot of rural areas and often aren鈥檛 strong enough for multiple family members to be online at one time. Wired connections, linked to fiber-optic cable, are faster and more reliable, but many communities still don鈥檛 have service. That鈥檚 one need the infrastructure bill, which the Senate was expected to pass Tuesday, would address.

Hotspots 鈥渨orked great for some students,鈥� Marwell said, 鈥渂ut that didn鈥檛 work well for a lot of students.鈥�

After a year in which some students had no face-to-face learning, researchers have a better handle on where the nation鈥檚 broadband infrastructure fell short in meeting the needs of families with multiple children learning at home.

As the nation transitioned to remote work and learning, complaints to the FCCskyrocketed, according to a recent Carnegie Mellon University . Most users complained that providers offered faster 鈥渄ownstream鈥� service 鈥� the ability to download files or videos 鈥� than the 鈥渦pstream鈥� capabilities needed to submit files like school assignments.

鈥淭he implications for [internet service providers] are obvious,鈥� the authors wrote. 鈥淓ven after COVID-19 has been tamed, we will probably see more people working and going to school from home than before the pandemic.鈥� The authors said providers will have to reconsider the speed customers need to upload data 鈥渙r risk becoming less competitive.鈥�

Companies marketing internet solutions to districts are also trying to address families鈥� frustrations with unreliable service. Last month, Kajeet 鈥� known for enabling school buses to blast Wi-Fi into neighborhoods with limited broadband 鈥� launched its new , a fixed connection suitable for households with multiple family members online.

Michael Flood, Kajeet鈥檚 senior vice president for education and general manager, added that hotspots are still a better solution for students who aren鈥檛 always learning at home. 鈥淣ot all hotspots are equal,鈥� he said, adding that some are five times as fast as the ones many districts purchased and distributed last year.

In Congress, Democrats in the House and Senate are hoping to turn the temporary Emergency Connectivity Fund into a five-year, $40 billion program. The proposed could turn up as future legislation under the $3.5 trillion Democrats unveiled Monday.

For now, districts are trying to comply with the fine print for the new program. That includes estimating how many students need devices or internet service.

Another requirement is that districts can鈥檛 use the funds to provide devices or broadband to students who have been served under another state or federal program, such as last year鈥檚 relief funds. In fact, in some districts where students already had devices, officials used those earlier funds to pay for at-home internet. That鈥檚 one reason why they鈥檙e waiting for a second application window as their needs this year become clearer.

The connectivity fund 鈥渋s an off-shoot of a program that has a history of being tight on rules and regulations,鈥� Marwell said, referring to E-Rate. 鈥淭he last thing a school wants to do is spend a million on home broadband and find out they didn鈥檛 follow these rules.鈥�