Pullman schools eye Wi-Fi for all

The Pullman School District is working to get internet access to its rural students, and Garren Shannon said he won’t stop until snow days turn into virtual days.

With help from the state, Pullman schools are working to remove network boundaries for students without Wi-Fi at home. The district will build three towers this summer and will provide Chromebooks to students in need. Shannon, director of information services and project manager, said though the program is new, it’s just the beginning of the effort to provide internet connections to rural households throughout Washington.

During the COVID-19 pandemic when schools shut down and went virtual nationwide, the switch was easier for students who had access to internet at home. But for others who didn’t have Wi-Fi, either living in a dead zone or whose families had financial issues, the move posed a large challenge.

In Whitman County 4.28% of the school’s population lives in an area without internet access or can’t afford Wi-Fi, according to Shannon. Many families who live in the rural Palouse are limited to satellite services, which are expensive, or to have no connection at all.

“A couple miles outside of (Pullman) is what we call an internet access desert — many parents don’t even have cellular service access,” Shannon said. “A few days after the world shut down we quickly learned the severity of this. We’re still working to address this situation and get everyone online, so we can keep education going because that’s our mission.”

Shannon started looking at ways to remove network barriers for rural students, but because radio signals are sensitive to the Palouse hills he was limited to one option. Shannon settled on towers, as they can reach over and into valleys where normal connection cannot.

At the same time Shannon found this solution: The Biden administration rolled out a program to connect broadband access to rural communities. The program is run by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and provides a little more than $2 billion worth of access nationwide.

The district was given $1 million to build three cellular towers in Whitman County. Construction will begin Monday and will run through the summer, placing towers in Tekoa, Albion and Pullman. Additionally, the program will fund customer premise equipment and provide specialized antennas to be mounted on homes, as well as 30 Chromebooks to low-income students.

Shannon said construction should be finished before the next academic year, and the network should reach homes across Whitman County.

Though signals will be able to reach residences county-wide, homeowners will still need to purchase internet but it won’t be as expensive as satellite services. Shannon added families that are struggling with funds may be eligible for government-assisted programs like the Affordable Connectivity Program that covers part of internet costs.

Whitman is one of the first counties in Washington to be a part of this program. Shannon said in a year he will have student data to show how functional and productive this program is, which he plans on presenting to the Department of Commerce. He hopes he’ll be able to use this data to expand services across the state, providing network access to rural communities across Washington.

“Imagine a world where we have built this network out in the entire state, and students won’t have to miss class time because they couldn’t log in,” said Shannon. “I get asked a lot, how will we know when we’re done? And I always say when we stop calling snow days and start calling them virtual days, then I’ll know we’re done.”

Pearce can be reached at epearce@dnews.com