A program that puts Wi-Fi on school buses in the Coachella Valley so students without internet at home can do their schoolwork received national attention Wednesday night on CBS News.
Coachella Valley School District, led by superintendent Darryl Adams, has turned school buses into “mobile hot-spots” by equipping them with Wi-Fi. The buses are parked in various neighborhoods at night allowing students to use them to do their homework.
The district was the first in the nation to put an iPad in the hands of every student, but Adams quickly realized there was a problem
“I would be here sometimes on Friday night and drive by school and there would be parents with kids in the car sitting there doing their homework,” Adams told CBS News.
More than 95 percent of the students in the area live below the poverty line and home internet service is not an option.
“To us that was unacceptable, we could do better,” Adams explained. “And we were thinking, well we have a hundred buses here. Why don’t we put routers on the buses and park them where there is no connectivity?”
CBS does not allow for embedding the video, so click here to watch – it’s worth it.
