You’re paying more property taxes, but Fort Worth ISD needs a year to build broadband
Somehow, we’ve managed to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control sooner than the Fort Worth school district could fulfill its promise to boost broadband access for students in the neediest parts of the city.
Star-Telegram reporter Silas Allen recently detailed how the district slipped from its own projected timeframe — six months — to erect broadband towers and provide high-speed internet access to more children. The initial explanation was that the district hired a new information director in January, delaying the project. On Thursday, Superintendent Kent Scribner said coordination with a similar project engineered by the city took time, as did getting approval from the school board.
Unveiling the new timeline Thursday, Scribner said that by the start of the next school year (Aug. 16), broadband will be available in four neighborhoods: Morningside, Eastern Hills, Rosemont and Stop Six. Under a plan the school board approved this week, it would roll out to other underserved areas in east and southeast Fort Worth in December or January.
Scribner had tied the original timeline to the district’s request that voters significantly increase property taxes. The new revenue was crucial to the project, along with the stopgap measure of distributing wifi hotspots and laptops to thousands of schoolchildren.
Voters did their part, agreeing to pay more taxes during a time of deep economic uncertainty. School district leaders? Not so much.
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Admittedly, it’s a complex project. It’s not a matter of ordering equipment from Amazon and setting it up the next day. The towers are large and expensive, and their placement must be strategically coordinated. And of course, the government procurement process is complicated.
But it’ll take FWISD about as long to get permanent broadband to just a portion of the district as it did for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to develop their coronavirus vaccines. It doesn’t have to be Operation Warp Speed, but can we get Operation Sooner Than Later?
It aligns with what seems to be a general lack of urgency around correcting the educational loss that the pandemic caused. It took months to come up with a plan for summer school that is minimal, at best, in addressing learning losses.
The challenges of the pandemic have been vast for educators. Schools had to shift to online learning on the fly, then do a year of hybrid learning. Districts have had to reconfigure schools, an expensive and time-consuming process, and deal with significant loss of teachers to retirement, illness or quarantine over possible coronavirus exposure.
Let’s not forget, though, that FWISD wasn’t exactly crushing it academically before COVID. There’s been some modest improvement under Scribner, but reading proficiency, a vital metric, remains just about as bad as it’s ever been.
The expected return to full in-person schooling removes some of the urgency of the broadband project. But the investment is now more about helping students better access online homework and other resources and develop necessary skills for the digital age. And it will put in place infrastructure that can be used in the event of another outbreak, be it COVID or even just a particularly bad flu season, or even wintry weather.
The district is, as always, responding to difficult conditions resulting from Fort Worth’s significant inequalities. It’s another example of asking the schools, like the police, to address society’s ills because they have the money and personnel. But families who struggle to put food on the table aren’t able to afford even modest broadband plans.
There’s good news in the extensive cooperation between the district and the city of Fort Worth, which is also extending internet access in needy areas. They’ve worked together on sites for towers and overlapping networks and will continue to do so.
The state is stepping in, too, though its efforts will be longer-range. A bill that would create a state office to distribute grants and loans to improve access and monitor access levels across Texas is nearing final approval in the Legislature, and Gov. Greg Abbott has made it a priority.
The pandemic helped elevate broadband access to rare air: an issue most parts of the political spectrum agree on. FWISD deserves credit for doing its part. But it should have been done much faster.
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 3:10 PM.