Amid critical need, Fort Worth schools project to expand broadband access is delayed
Fort Worth Star-Telegram 1 hr ago Silas Allen, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
May 17 Fort Worth school officials have pushed back a plan to bring broadband internet service to students in underserved parts of the district.
School officials plan to build towers across the district to provide public wifi access to neighborhoods where many students don t have high-speed internet service at home. In November, Fort Worth Superintendent Kent Scribner told the Star-Telegram he expected the first towers could be completed in six months if voters approved a property tax increase. But six months later, a district spokesman said last week the project is currently on a new timeline following the hiring of a new chief information officer in January.
Fort Worth, Texas, Schools Delay Broadband Expansion
School officials have delayed a plan to bring broadband to students in underserved parts of the district, planning to build towers that provide public Wi-Fi access to neighborhoods where students lack service at home.
May 17, 2021 • (TNS) Fort Worth school officials have pushed back a plan to bring broadband internet service to students in underserved parts of the district.
School officials plan to build towers across the district to provide public wifi access to neighborhoods where many students don t have high-speed internet service at home. In November, Fort Worth Superintendent Kent Scribner told the Star-Telegram he expected the first towers could be completed in six months if voters approved a property tax increase. But six months later, a district spokesman said last week the project is currently on a new timeline following the hiring of a new chief information officer in Janu
For rural families who lack reliable, high-speed internet, Zoom-style instruction is a luxury.
April 8, 2021
For months, Gus Peters, a high school senior in the East Texas town of Jasper, went where the Wi-Fi was. Some days, he parked himself at the local coffee shop, Jasper Java, ordering a green tea frappé to appease whoever was working the register. Other times, he went to Elijah’s Cafe for a Trail Blazer, the diner’s signature dish of chopped steak smothered in gravy. Often, he spent hours in his gray Ford Escape in the parking lots of Walmart, Lowe’s, or McDonald’s, his sister Grace beside him, both of them on their laptops, doing schoolwork. “I didn’t feel right sitting in the parking lot,” Gus says. “Didn’t feel like I was supposed to be there.” He and his sister were Wi-Fi nomads.