This southwest IL district found a way to give more students internet access at home
Collinsville CUSD 10 is among the first school districts in the U.S. to launch a private LTE network, providing internet connectivity to about 500 students within four square miles in Fairmont City and State Park.
After COVID-19 shut down schools a year ago and districts turned to remote learning, internet connectivity gaps that had been growing in many communities became a much more unwieldy problem. Even school districts that had a technology device for every student struggled, as the pandemic made it more difficult for students without internet at home to go to a library or coffee shop and complete their work.
“We knew there was a connectivity gap, and that was problematic,” Collinsville Superintendent Brad Skertich said. “But when you shut down school for the whole fourth quarter … it takes that gap and heightens it.”
The district’s new LTE tower is located at Kreitner Elementary School. The district paid for the construction - about $300,000 - with money it received from the CARES Act. Without the pandemic — and the federal relief and stimulus money that came with it — Skertich said Collinsville wouldn’t have been able to bridge the connectivity gap.
In addition to the LTE tower, the district was able to expand which grades had a technology device, such as a Chromebook, available for every student. Before schools shut down, only seventh through twelfth grade students all had a device; now, all students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade are issued a device.
An LTE tower at Kreitner Elementary School was more cost-effective than issuing WiFi hotspots, said Derek Turner, director of technology. Hotspots, which have become the most ubiquitous solution for remote learning, have high monthly fees and a limited reach; after COVID-relief money dried up, the hotspots wouldn’t be an affordable, long-term solution to the connectivity gap.
The costs to maintain the tower will be less than $10,000 a year to cover licensing and general wear and tear, Turner said. Alternatively, the same coverage from WiFi hotspots could cost the district up to $90,000 a year — and that’s assuming none of the hotspots need to be replaced that year. Each hotspot costs $15 a month, and only has a lifespan of a few years.
At Kreitner Elementary, 88% of students were considered low-income in 2020, compared to 59% for Collinsville 10 as a whole, according to the Illinois Report Card. The LTE tower doesn’t only serve Kreitner students; any Collinsville students who live within the tower’s range, including middle or high school students, are able to access the internet connection.
“This solution is really only good for covering an area where there’s a high concentration of students in a fairly close proximity,” Turner said. Elsewhere in the district, students without internet access are more evenly dispersed, and they’re issued hotspots.
Turner said about 10% of the district’s more than 6,000 students didn’t have internet access at home.
District devices will automatically connect to the network, which makes the technology more accessible and user-friendly for families. Kreitner Elementary has a high percentage students who don’t speak English as their first language — 64%, compared to 12% for the rest of the district — so there’s a language barrier in some families that can make it difficult to troubleshoot with the district, if there’s a problem with the connection.
Even when all students are back in the classroom full time, Skertich and Turner said the LTE tower would change how some teachers are able to run their classrooms. Some might opt for a flipped classroom, where students watch lessons at home and work through problems with teachers in the classroom. Others might focus more on project-based learning that requires research outside of the classroom.
“I think it’s going to change everything, honesty,” Turner said.
This story was originally published March 14, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
