The Cordell Beacon
Distance Learning Highlights Oklahoma’s Digital Divide
Jennifer Palmer
Oklahoma Watch
This story is part of a col-
laboration with FRONT-
May LINE, the PBS series,
through its Local Jour-
nalism Initiative, which is
13 funded by the John S. and
James L. Knight Founda-
tion and the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting.
2020 When the coronavirus
pandemic closed school
buildings, teachers were
Page tasked with connecting to
students from afar. Sud-
denly, students’ lack of
A012 home internet access was
in the spotlight.
Clip A mid-March survey by
the Oklahoma Education
resized Department showed that
nearly one-quarter of the
26% state’s public school stu-
dents, about 167,000,
don’t have internet access
at home.
That means in places
like Hugo, a community
of 5,100 in southeastern
Oklahoma, teachers had
to try to reach students
through phone calls,
emails and letters. The
district has distributed
hundreds of schoolwork
paper packets to students
who are offline.
Despite the efforts,
some students didn’t re-
spond.
“We are lucky to have
Property of OPS News Tracker and members of the Oklahoma Press Association.
an outstanding group of
teachers who found cre-
ative ways to reach their
students during the cri-
sis,” said Superintendent
Earl Dalke. “If we had
been able to provide
learning opportunities to
all students online, we
would have been able to
do a far better job.”
In some rural areas, in-
ternet service is spotty
or slow or even nonexis-
tent. Districts have been
scrambling to buy hot
spots, which create a wire-
less internet connection
through cellular networks.
That created a backlog
with cellular companies,
with orders taking weeks.
Some districts rolled wire-
less internet-enabled
school buses into neigh-
borhoods or welcomed
families to school parking
lots for a signal.
It’s a patchwork ap-
proach that officials say
is leaving some students
behind.
It’s also a hasty, cri-
sis-driven approach, given
the circumstances. But the
upcoming influx of feder-
al relief dollars presents
an opportunity to address
what state Superinten-
dent of Public Instruction
Joy Hofmeister called “a
lingering issue,” meaning
inadequate broadband at
home.
The state is expecting
$160 million in federal
relief funds for K-12 edu-
cation, 90% of which will
be allocated directly to
school districts. Ten per-
cent, or $16 million, can
be spent by the depart-
ment.
Gov. Kevin Stitt, like all
state governors, is receiv-
ing an additional federal
grant for education from
the governor’s emergen-
cy education relief fund.
Stitt is set to receive $40
million. Stitt said on April
17 that he is considering
spending some of the
funds on a private school
scholarship fund or for Ad-
vanced Placement class-
es in rural areas, drawing
widespread backlash.
“Our primary focus is
on connectivity and the
ability to close the digital
divide,” Hofmeister said
about the department’s
portion of funds. She pro-
posed that Stitt also use
his portion on internet
access. “Our schools are
looking for a long-term
plan.”
Secretary of Education
Betsy DeVos also is urging
school districts to use the
funds to invest in “tech-
nology, distance learning
resources, training and
long-term planning,” to
support distance learn-
ing, according to a recent
press release.
Even when schools re-
open, likely this fall, some
situations could require
another pivot to distance
learning. A resurgence
of COVID-19 could re-
quire widespread closures
again. Social distancing
could lead schools to hold
more digital days to re-
duce risk. Individual stu-
dents could be distance
learning if exposure to
COVID-19 requires them
to quarantine at home.
Districts’ relief funds will
be distributed through
the Title 1 formula, which
is based on the number
of low-income students
served by the district.
But the funds have fewer
restrictions than Title 1
funds. For instance, fed-
eral CARES Act funds can
be spent on technology
infrastructure upgrades
that impact the entire dis-
trict.
“Think about internet
access through Wi-Fi and
the ability to not only im-
pact common education,
but students regardless of
where they go to school,”
Hofmeister said. “This is
more of a global, compre-
hensive answer.”
Greatest Needs Are Rural
Ninety-nine percent of
schools in the country are
outfitted with high-speed
internet and Wi-Fi in class-
rooms to support digital
learning, according to Ed-
ucationSuperHighway, a
nonprofit focused on im-
proving Internet access in
public schools.
But step off school
grounds in Luther and in-
ternet access is “really dif-
ficult or slow,” said Barry
Gunn, Luther’s superin-
tendent. That’s the case in
many communities.
“We’re not as rural as
most schools, and it’s
spotty out here in certain
places,” Gunn said. Luther
is less than 30 miles from
downtown Oklahoma City
on the eastern side Okla-
homa County.
Fewer than half of Okla-
homa’s rural residents
have access to high-
speed internet – one of
the lowest percentages
of any state, according
to a Federal Communica-
tions Commission report.
Only two states reported
a smaller percentage of
rural access: Arizona and
Nevada.
That’s 651,000 Oklaho-
mans in rural areas who
don’t have access to high-
speed internet, defined
as download speeds of at
least 25 megabits per sec-
ond.
“In today’s world, how
we are interconnected is a
necessity,” said David Os-
trowe, state secretary of
digital transformation and
administration. He wants
to see all Oklahomans
have not only access, but
speeds of at least 100
megabits per second, a
goal he called “lofty.”
“Rural access is current-
ly the biggest hurdle. It is
very expensive to provide
internet access to these
areas,” Ostrowe said.
Hot Spots, Equity
One of the most effec-
tive workarounds is a por-
table hot spot, which taps
into a cellular network
and provides internet ac-
cess. These devices are
how Epic Charter Schools,
the state’s largest virtual
school with nearly 30,000
students across the state,
provides internet to any
student who needs it. Like
other schools, Epic will re-
ceive federal relief funds.
The devices Epic pro-
vides work independent
of a family’s cell phone
and the school pays the
monthly data plans for the
service, said Shelly Hick-
man, a spokeswoman for
Epic.
Demand for hot spots
soared in the past few
weeks as schools transi-
tioned to distance learn-
ing. Dozens of school dis-
tricts across the country
have contacted Everyone-
On, a nonprofit working
to improve internet ac-
cess and device accessi-
bility for low-income fami-
lies, about purchasing hot
spots and LG -enabled
tablets, said Chief Exec-
utive Officer Norma Fer-
nandez.
There’s a backlog, she
said, and orders that pre-
viously would have been
fulfilled in a week are now
taking two or three weeks.
Schools are trying to order
thousands at a time. In the
meantime, students are
trying to transition to dis-
tance learning without the
tools they need, adding
stress to an already stress-
ful situation.
“We are talking about
kids who are already be-
hind,” Fernandez said. “It
has a significant impact on
their learning.”
Tulsa Public Schools,
the state’s second largest
district, distributed tens
of thousands of Chrome-
books. But getting all stu-
dents connected to the
internet has proven more
difficult.
“We provided a com-
puter to any child who
needed one, and we were
able to do that because of
the generosity of Tulsans,”
said Superintendent Deb-
orah Gist, referring to
bond dollars. “The chal-
lenge is internet access.”
The Tulsa school board
Monday night approved
the purchase of 1,500
hotspots to give students
internet access for sum-
mer school.
High-speed internet is
available to 95% of Okla-
homans living in urban
areas and less than 50%
of those in rural areas,
according to the FCC. Af-
fordability is still an issue
statewide. Even with low-
cost plans available, pro-
viders can deny service
based on a family’s credit
history.
One solution the dis-
trict has used is parking
a school bus with free
Wi-Fi at various locations
throughout the city to fill
in the gaps.
Similarly, Oklahoma
City Public Schools has
welcomed families to its
school parking lots to
access free Wi-Fi while
schools are closed. And in
Tahlequah, the local elec-
tric cooperative has add-
ed two free public Wi-Fi
spots at a school and city
park as part of the FCC’s
“Keep Americans Con-
nected” initiative, accord-
ing to the Tahlequah Daily
Press. More than 700 com-
panies have signed the
pledge to not terminate
service due to customers’
inability to pay their bills,
waive late fees and open
Wi-Fi hot spots to Ameri-
cans who need them.
School solutions such as
these, while helpful tem-
porarily, are not suitable
long-term, said Fernan-
dez, of EveryoneOn. And
they present equity issues.
“We want access that is
equitable and ubiquitous.
We don’t expect high-
er-income families to drive
to a parking lot to access
the internet,” she said.
Long-Term Solutions
When the state ordered
a full switch to distance
learning for all districts on
April 6, Idabel was ready.
A month before schools
shuttered for the corona-
virus pandemic, Idabel
Public Schools held the
district’s first “virtual day.”
It was something superin-
tendent Doug Brown had
heard about on a podcast,
and he wanted to try it as
part of an ongoing effort
to increase the district’s
use of technology.
Three years ago, the
district started providing
hot spots to teachers, and
when they upgraded, the
district held on to the old-
er ones for student use.
“We check them out like
a library book,” he said.
They also are a one-to-
one district, meaning all
students have a computer
or tablet to use. The com-
munity approved a $1 mil-
lion bond for technology
equipment in 2017.
“We’ve been really
blessed. We were really
prepared for this situa-
tion,” Brown said.
Student participation in
Idabel’s distance learning
is averaging over 90%,
which he called “phenom-
enal.”
The district, in far south-
eastern Oklahoma, has
1,200 students this year.
Nearly 90% are eligible
for free or reduced-price
lunch, an indicator of
poverty. Brown said that
drives his push to increase
technology access.
“Technology is here and
it’s not going away, and
we have to move forward
in our educational sys-
tem,” he said. “It’s even
more important for poor
districts to provide these
opportunities.”
Oklahoma Watch, at
oklahomawatch.org, is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan
news organization that
covers public-policy is-
sues facing the state.