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A study published by American Educational Research Association on Monday found school efforts to text parents do not necessarily increase their engagement levels and may actually backfire in some instances.

The study, conducted in the 2013-14 school year, examined the engagement level of parents of 3,483 middle and high school students in England who received an average of two text messages per week, nudging them to ask students specific questions related to their science curriculum. In the end, researchers found while the interventions increased parent-child conversations at home, they did not noticeably impact test scores.

The findings also suggest interventions decreased parent engagement in other areas like enforcing bedtimes or talking about current homework assignments. "These findings illustrate that parent engagement interventions are not costless: There are opportunity costs to shifting parental effort," the authors found.

While the use of texting and other technology to engage parents was growing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, school closures triggered by the virus fast-tracked the use of these approaches.

Tennessee, for example, put a texting program in place in a majority of its districts free of charge to engage parents of students in grades PK-3, aiming to boost early literacy. The program's popularity was credited to its convenience for both parents and teachers, and to the digestible nature of the texts. Other major school systems around the nation, like the New York City Department of Education and San Francisco Unified School District, used the same program during COVID-19 school closures.

While research has confirmed parent engagement boosts student outcomes, the link between texting programs and outcomes has been less defined. In a 2014 Stanford study, researchers found texting personalized and differentiated messages in San Francisco Unified School District, leading to slight increases in parental engagement and learning gains for kindergarten students. 

Conversely, the study published this month by AERA examined texts' impact on parents and their children in middle or high school, rather than in the earlier grades. Out of the 3,483 families studied, 2,212 students completed a survey that found while the texting "did not have a discernable impact on students’ science test scores," it did decrease the likelihood of students reporting their parents engaged with them in other ways to supplement their schooling.

For example, they were less likely by 7.4 percentage points to turn off the television, computer or video game; 5.4 percentage points less likely to enforce a student's bedtime; and 5 percentage points less likely to check that the student was studying. 

"Successfully directing parental investments toward some parent engagement behaviors can crowd out other, possibly beneficial, behaviors," the study's authors wrote. "Parents have limited time, attention, and resources to invest in their child’s education, so there can be opportunity costs to shifting parental effort."

However, while researchers found no impact on test scores, they warned other areas left unmeasured may have benefited from the text messages, like curiosity or parent-child relationships.

"On one hand, these results are promising," authors wrote. "They demonstrate parents respond to encouragements from schools about engaging in their child’s education, and that students like such interventions more than they would expect." 

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the abilities of school districts to provide a device to every student and of students to access learning from nearly anywhere at any time. 

Now, to help make up for lost instruction time during the 2020-21 school year, more school systems are allowing and even encouraging students to bring their school-issued devices home over the summer. There are layers of benefits, education leaders said, including the opportunity to reduce summer slide by providing equitable access to continual academic content over the summer months.

“We all know learning gaps are huge, and that's our concern right now,” said Matthew Willey, chief technology officer for Perry Township Schools in Indianapolis. “It really comes down to providing any opportunity we can to try and help those kids get caught back up.” 

But there are also major technology management considerations and costs for overseeing device take-home programs. Safety — for both students and the devices — is at the top of that list. 

Education leaders are also trying to balance messages to families and students that while students should be encouraged to log in and keep their math and reading skills fresh, they should also turn off the screens and play outside after a year of quarantining and social isolation.

Doug Casey, executive director of the Connecticut State Commission for Educational Technology, said although students' access to technology over the summer has academic advantages, “if we're talking about this particular summer, what I am seeing is a real emphasis on social and emotional learning, getting kids outside, getting them socialized, and allowing them just to be kids this summer.”

Managing a growing number of devices

School systems are managing a growing number of devices, and while that was a known pre-pandemic trend, the responsibility rose sharply as more districts added devices to their inventories during the global health crisis.

This year, 49% of districts are supporting more than 7,500 devices, up from 2020 when 33% of districts managed that many devices, according to the Consortium for School Networking's 2021 EdTech Leadership Survey Report. The devices referred to in these figures include not only laptops and tablets for students, but other campus-based hardware such as smart HVAC systems.

The same CoSN report, based on a national survey of K-12 IT leaders, found concerns about insufficient staffing for providing remote support to students and families and for instructional support for classroom use.

“We were prepared with devices, hotspots, video training on how to use them and our online systems in a timely manner — what we were not prepared for were the non-stop help desk calls for the entire time we were shut down,” read the comment of one survey respondent.

Summer has typically been a school system’s opportunity to collect, assess, clean, repair and update school-issued devices in order to get devices in ideal working status for the next school year. When devices are with students 365 days a year, those necessary tasks are more difficult to staff and organize.

Perry Township Schools has narrowed its summer turnaround time for individual device “blackout periods” from several days or weeks to one hour, said Willey. Those downtimes allow tech teams to check the optimization of the device and make updates with academic content the student will access in the upcoming school year. The district is managing about 15,000 devices, Willey said. 

Summertime also gives IT staff opportunities to do inventory and account for missing devices. If a student withdraws from the school system and hasn’t returned the device, Perry Township Schools can remotely disable it, Willey said. 

Richland School District Two in Columbia, South Carolina, which has about 28,000 students, offers parents an opt-in $20 annual device protection plan that waives the cost of the first incidence of a lost or broken device. The repair or replacement cost for the second incident would be the responsibility of the family, though the school district can waive or reduce those costs based on a family’s circumstances, said Tom Cranmer, the district’s chief technology and innovation officer.

Because there’s a constant churn of devices and students, it’s important for districts to have robust systems for checking inventory and the security of devices, said Cranmer. The district has tech support and technology learning coaches available to staff, students and families. 

Perry Township Schools does not offer parents a device protection plan for lost or damaged devices but has hosted drive-through device swaps where parents can return a broken device and pick up a new one. Purchasing hard shell cases for devices has cut down on the incidences of broken screens and lost devices, Willey said

“Anytime something doesn't work, it becomes much more likely to get lost or broken,” he said.

Extending learning opportunities

What districts should do when taking all these issues into consideration is to view school-issued devices “not as a sunk cost to school systems, but as an operational investment into creative ways to provide students with learning opportunities,” said Casey, who is also chair of the board of directors for the State Educational Technology Directors Association.

Casey encouraged schools to offset the cost of these recurring technology investments by using devices and apps in creative ways, such as leveraging free and open educational resources (OER) when possible, rather than always paying for commercial curriculum products, and encouraging the use of adaptive software for student home use.

Indeed, educators in many districts that have sent devices home with students over the summer have provided suggested online activities that are either part of the school year curriculum or supplemental and enrichment activities, such as typing and foreign language programs.

Online activities that are self-paced and adaptive to students’ performance levels can be powerful tools to strengthen students’ individual areas of need, Casey said. 

Chuck Holland, Richland’s director of instructional technology, said the district has software that can analyze what online resources students are accessing over the summer. The district will use that information to make improvements, he said.

Another activity the Richland district did last year to help the school community become more comfortable with remote learning and take-home devices was to give a mock remote class lesson to the district’s school board. “The board members really, really liked that, and they really were able to get a solid understanding of what the possibilities were for e-learning,” said Cranmer.

Even a district’s device management program can be a learning opportunity for students. In Perry Township, high school student volunteers help repair broken school-issued Chromebook screens, which offers the district a valuable service and teaches the students technical skills, Willey said.

With the growing number of devices leaving campuses, districts are now having to provide tech support year-round, seven days a week. Many districts had support hotlines during remote learning, and as districts consider the need to sustain 1:1 programs and allow students to take devices home for weekends and holiday breaks, tech support for students and families will also need to continue, Casey said.

Perry Township Schools found another surprising benefit of allowing students to keep devices over the summer — students are logged in and familiar with navigating the learning platforms as soon as they walk in on the first day of school. The district used to spend weeks at the start of the school year distributing devices and teaching students how to use them, Willey said.

“We're hoping to really bring back two to three weeks worth of education that would normally be on the computer,"  he said.

In a Tuesday afternoon virtual session during the annual ISTE conference, a group of district technology directors led the latest iteration of the show's popular "CTO Bootcamp" panel. Organized by the ISTE Technology Coordinators Network, the discussion's participants were also all representing school systems that received the ISTE Distinguished District Award in recent years.

Over the course of the nearly-hour-long discussion moderated by Brian Seymour, director of instructional technology for Pickerington Local School District in Ohio and president of ISTE’s Technology Coordinators Network, the focus remained largely on pandemic responses and the best practices that will persist as schools return to full-time, in-person learning.

Empathy, grace and silver linings

Asked about her district's biggest takeaway from the shift to remote learning necessitated by COVID-19, Melissa Prohaska, technology and digital coordinator for Middletown City Schools in Ohio, stated that a districtwide focus on keeping empathy and grace first and foremost meant making sure all users were supported.

“Everybody assumes everybody knows how to use stuff digitally,” but Middletown is a 100% free and reduced-price lunch community and you have to figure out how to support all of your users, Prohaska said. “That doesn’t mean pushing out through Twitter or Facebook or that. We’ve gotta pick up the phone and call some people, too, sometimes — just to make sure everybody’s included.”

Diane Harazin, supervisor of instructional technology for Prince William County Public Schools in Virginia, added that a lot of positive things happened with the pandemic, allowing many schools to do things they would have never dreamed of. Her district had a technology plan to phase to 1:1 over the next five years but is now fully 1:1 due to the disruption of the pandemic.

“We’ve got teachers who never touched technology now saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I never knew we could do this, I never knew my students could do this,’” Harazin said, noting many also recognized that their students now had more choice in showing how and what they learned.

Todd Wesley, chief technology officer for Lakota Local School District in Ohio, said the experience reiterated how integral and dedicated teachers are to student learning.

“We all knew this, but having to pivot overnight to remote learning and ensure there was continuity of learning,” and then having to pivot for reopening with new protocols and other challenges while offering a virtual academy option for students remaining remote underscored that, Wesley said. “We all know technology has a role, but it wasn’t the focus. And that was a positive takeaway for me.”

He added that the situation highlighted the flexibility and responsiveness of both students and staff.

Expanded opportunities for districts to collaborate

Once lockdowns were announced in Ohio, superintendents across the state put together a collaborative with a goal of getting different groups together to lead discussions on challenges and best practices.

“That experience has been wonderful because we’ve been able to compare notes,” Wesley said, adding that these groups include a mix of rural, urban and suburban districts with challenges of varying sizes and similarity. “That whole experience has been wonderful and definitely something we want to continue moving forward.”

Seymour added, “Maybe it’s not weekly like we were doing there for a while — maybe it’s monthly or every other month — but just being able to have that dialog and questions like that.”

Strategic shifts in staff roles

Seymour asked participants whether the way IT staff are being used changed because of the pandemic, as well as their recommendations moving forward.

Harazin said her district has about 95 instructional technology coaches, with coaches in every single building on a teacher scale contract. Their main role is to support teachers with instructional technology, and a technical support specialist also works in partnership with the coaches.

“Our technology coaches totally took the lead in making sure teachers had what they needed to go forward” when schools closed, training teachers on Canvas and other applications needed, Harazin said.

Going forward, Harazin recommends districts trust their instructional technology coaches, listen to them, and give them opportunities to collaborate.

“When they work with each other, they work with people in the same role, great things happen,” she said, adding that by creating time for that collaboration, “we’ve overcome so many challenges that could have been disastrous had they not been able to work together.

Prohaska said since her district is on the small side, she’s in more of a position where she has to be a jack-of-all-trades and take on all of the support roles. Teachers, however, step up all the time, she said.

“We have a phenomenal group of teacher leaders in all of our buildings, so what we did was divvy up our softwares so they became an expert in a certain area,” Prohaska said, adding that this allowed each teacher leader to become a go-to resource for the district. Over 100 short videos were then made and uploaded in a shared Google Drive to serve as guides for teachers, along with a group chat and other tools.

Adjusting strategies for new tech amid school returns

Seymour suggested more school districts went 1:1 in the last 18 months than in the last 18 years. As a result, now that districts have all of these new devices and software and kids are coming back to school, what should administrators be thinking about from a learning model standpoint?

Wesley noted that his district was 1:1 already in several grades before the pandemic, and in the fall, 75% of students returned in-person.

In spring 2020, Lakota Local School District, like many others, was inundated with offers for “free” software. The district had an app and website approval process already established that they leaned on heavily, but they also tried to make sure when they said “no” to an educator’s proposal for using a certain tool that they did so with clear reasons. Wesley also said if something similar was already offered in that arena, the district would advise that educators use that.

His advice to other IT leaders is to ensure a plan is in place for their district to vet software, and to make sure all of those processes align with curriculum and instructional goals as well as technology standards and expectations.

Harazin added that contracting for device refreshes and clean-up during summer is also crucial, and stressed the point of making sure when teachers and staff want to use a new piece of software or another digital tool that they read what info is collected to protect student privacy.

Changes to distribution processes

Prohaska noted that Middletown doesn’t allow students to keep computers over summer because it's a very transient district, and a lot of things can change during those months. For distribution at the beginning of the school year, they’re streamlining processes to make sure everyone can log onto their device on day one and that it connects to their hotspot.

“One of the biggest hurdles I always have every year is this teacher has everybody log on the first day, but some other teacher may not have them log on until 10 days later, and I don’t know who has what or there’s always a glitch with an upload or something,” Prohaska said.

Along with doing a one-day distribution on the first day back, Middletown is also doing a hybrid start, with the first half of the alphabet on day one and the second half on day two, to make sure everyone is re-acclimated back to being in school.

Wesley also noted that his district is doing the hybrid start because they tried it last year, and it worked well, he said.

In the early months of the pandemic, when educators were quickly trying to figure out how to keep instruction going during stay-at-home orders, Doug Casey, executive director of the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology, would get panicky phone calls from students’ family members trying to navigate online learning platforms and connect to the internet.

He also problem solved with leaders at the state education department, school districts, ed tech vendors and internet providers to get devices, internet and app access to students and educators. Through the chaos of meeting digital accessibility needs, Casey and state and local partners also focused on digital equity and making sure underrepresented students or students with unique circumstances such as having parents who live in different homes, could connect to remote learning.

While efforts to close the digital divide through device and internet availability are ongoing, attention is now being focused at the state, district, school and classroom levels to verify equity and effectiveness in student and teacher use of the available digital tools. 

“Getting a computer into a student's hands is one thing, it just doesn't guarantee that they're learning anything,” said Casey, who is also chair-elect of the Board of Directors of the State Educational Technology Directors Association.

Collecting and analyzing metrics for educator and student ed tech engagement — even when learning is mostly in-person — is a critical step in knowing what products are being used, if they are effective, and if there are disparities to digital learning. That knowledge can help school systems better target funding and professional development toward digital learning tools that improve student outcomes for all students, ed tech experts said.

“It’s a huge challenge of just quantifying the problem,” Casey said.

Measuring engagement

Administrators, teachers and students are continually using ed tech tools for assessment, curriculum, operations and reference, but the pandemic’s forced move to virtual or hybrid learning increased the need for those products. 

Before the pandemic, there was an average of 952 ed tech tools accessed each month by school districts, with at least 1,000 Chrome extension users. During the pandemic, that monthly average was 1,327, according to an analysis by LearnPlatform, a company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, that evaluates digital learning products for school systems. Google Docs was the most used ed tech product between July 1, 2019, and May 15, 2020.

In a survey of low-income families, respondents mentioned 51 different brands of online learning programs that were helpful for remote learning, according to a report published Thursday by New America.

LearnPlatform recently released a National EdTech Equity Dashboard showing K-12 web-based engagement across racial and economic student groups. The data was collected through LearnPlatform’s free Inventory Dashboard, which school systems can opt into to better understand how and when teachers, staff and students are accessing ed tech tools.

The National EdTech Equity Dashboard, for example, shows that in districts with more than 25% of students participating in free and reduced-priced lunch programs, digital engagement is consistently lower compared to districts with less than 25% participation. Racial gaps in usage are also visible. From January to May 2021, districts with more than 50% of students identifying as Black or Hispanic had lower levels of digital engagement, compared to districts with less than 50% Black or Hispanic student populations. 

The information on the national dashboard, which is not disaggregated to the district level, is based on a sampling of student engagement of more than three million students with the more than 9,000 ed tech products currently in LearnPlatform's library. Individual school districts that have their own inventory dashboards and subscription-based tools can disaggregate usage data to the school and classroom levels, said LearnPlatform CEO Karl Rectanus.

The publicly accessible national equity dashboard should help districts see how their own metrics compare to national trends and could inspire research and conversations at the local level as to what could be done to address persistent gaps. Ed tech engagement information can also be used to inform policies, purchasing and processes, Rectanus said. 

“One of the goals is to provide a level of context to inform, sort of, a shared fact base about what's actually happening across education technology and help the whole market be smarter about this,” he said.

Solving engagement barriers

After spending time and energy making sure all 41,000 students in Union County Public Schools in Monroe, North Carolina, had devices and internet access, attention is shifting to ensuring equity in usage, said Casey Rimmer, the district’s director of innovation and ed tech. 

“We've set the baseline of who's got devices and who has access to the internet, but now the next question is really analyzing who's engaging with the content, how are they engaging, how often, and what type of engagements are happening,” Rimmer said. 

The district’s usage trends are similar to the national gaps in equity. Using their local data, district leaders are able to hone in on some potential solutions, such as making online learning content available in the evenings for older students who are caring for younger siblings during the day, Rimmer said.

The usage data has also provided proof certain online tools adopted during the pandemic are worthy of longer-term investments because they were helpful for learning, such as digital science simulations to supplement in-person lab work, she said. 

The data can also uncover products that aren’t contributing to student learning. Rimmer said that at the onset of the pandemic, the school district was “flooded” with free ed tech products, and teachers got dependent on certain products. With complementary use periods expiring, districts will need to weigh which products to continue supporting, she said. 

“Schools have to get out in front of that and come up with a process to evaluate and determine what they're going to purchase, because a lot of teachers are going to demand a lot of things that they have been using for the last year on a free ticket,” Rimmer said.

Although state, district and school administrators may be able to use data analytic tools to monitor digital engagement and even identify trends that point to disparities, finding the root cause of why an individual student isn’t participating online would likely be the responsibility of the classroom teacher. 

Teachers have the closest relationships with students and families and best understand why a student is not engaging in online learning. “Ultimately, to really sell families on the importance of being online, the importance of having their kids engaged for remote learning, you need to be talking to parents,” Casey said.

It’s also the combination of efforts at state and local levels to better identify students and teachers who lack home-based internet or devices, as well as school staffs and classroom teachers who can probe into why individual students aren't engaging, that will build all the evidence that could lead toward solutions, Casey said.

Community organizations, such as advocates for Spanish-speaking residents and faith-based groups, are also strong partners in determining how schools can help students overcome engagement barriers, he said.

“I think at a state level, it really, it points to the importance of having a really strong partnership with the local districts,” Casey said. “They know these families. They know there could be other issues going on at home.”

For many years, Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, found herself repeatedly having to convince doubters that home internet access for all was essential. Then a global pandemic struck. 

"Now, people are like, 'OK, we get it. It's important. Let's talk about solutions. Let's talk about the realities of how we fix this problem,'" Siefer said.

As school systems, along with their communities, begin to shift from pandemic emergency mode to recovery status, they are insisting on sustainable and reliable ways to make internet access a permanent part of education on school campuses and in students' homes. During the pandemic, the only way employees and students could work or learn was through reliable, high-speed home internet service. But it's not just strong internet connections being discussed. 

School administrators are also looking to add or strengthen policies and initiatives that boost digital literacy for parents and students; professional development for educators; recurring funding for technology infrastructure and support; and practices that ensure equitable online instruction for 24-hour learners.

Addressing digital access, affordability and availability will take strategic coordination among local school, government and business partners, as well as support from state and federal agencies. While this has been a push in communities before the pandemic, the hardships brought to light by the pandemic are driving action that is broader and quicker than efforts made pre-pandemic. It's also sparking optimism that the increased attention and funding will finally cure the digital divide.

"If the mindset is to go back to what it was prior to COVID, then I think we lost an opportunity to do what's best for our kids," said Baron Davis, superintendent of Richland School District Two in Columbia, South Carolina. "So, this is the time to really kind of redesign. I think policies are going to have to exist around sustaining the efforts to redesign the K-12 experiences."

Need to modernize

Impactful change in school systems is typically a slow process filled with multi-year strategic plans, committees, debates, school board votes, policy changes and action plans. Yet, the public health crisis has forced schools to take rapid action to combat the digital divide. 

That's what happened in Hamilton Township School District in New Jersey, where, in February 2020, the school board approved a five-year plan to provide a device to every student. By June 2020, just four months later, the district met that goal in response to the abrupt closure of school campuses due to the emerging coronavirus, said Superintendent Scott Rocco. 

The district also realized through family surveys that 7.5% of students didn't have reliable internet at home. A grant from T-Mobile Project 10Million provided 500 hotspots for Hamilton Township students helping to fill that void, Rocco said.

Other changes the district swiftly made to ramp up virtual and hybrid learning formats included adding more apps and software, strengthening internet connections in school buildings, and providing targeted professional development, Rocco said. Different school system departments worked together to streamline operations. The management coordination developed during the pandemic to overcome barriers to digital inaccessibility is something educators vow to continue. 

They say that even once the pandemic has passed, students will need 24-hour access to online homework, studying and teachers' lessons.

"If we revert 100% back to the way we were prior to COVID in education, then shame on us, right?" Rocco said. "We need to modernize. There's so much that we've learned over the last year, some of it is not good, but a lot of it is good stuff that can help us move forward, and the band has to come together." 

Rocco said the district's mission now is to sustain the 1:1 program and provide internet access for students' home internet use. A device and Wi-Fi should be the equivalent of a child receiving a textbook at school, Rocco said. 

"It's a tool, it's a resource. It's not the be-all and end-all, but it is access, an entry into learning in the 21st century. Without it, it clearly identifies haves and have-nots, and that should not exist anymore."

Counting the unconnected

Across the country, school systems, in concert with local and state governments, are digging deep to find permanent answers to the digital divide. Several states, such as California, Illinois and Texas, created task forces in 2020 to help expand broadband access, better understand internet and device needs, develop guidance for local school systems, and help secure funding and resources, according to research from the Education Commission of the States. 

The federal government, too, is addressing the issue through dedicated stimulus funding, expanded use of the E-Rate program, and separate legislation and White House initiatives, such as the American Jobs Plan.

And while there are plenty of efforts from all levels of government to move internet access from a nice-to-have resource to a must-have, there are also efforts by education leaders to set policies that promote best practices and avoid duplication of efforts, waste of spending or actions that leave out segments of the population.

For example, the Council of Chief State School Officers, along with EducationSuperHighway and Digital Bridge K-12, developed a blueprint for policies to help state education agencies and school districts collect reliable data on students' home internet and device access. 

Knowing where the digital access gaps are can help better target resources, identify effective solutions, structure guidance and serve as leverage when advocating for state and federal funding, the blueprint said. 

The blueprint gives recommendations for data elements for collection, student data privacy considerations, and engaging with student information system vendors. For example, CCSSO worked with the three largest SIS vendors last year to add five digital accessibility data points to their products at no cost to school systems. PowerSchool, Infinite Campus and Skyward worked quickly to add that capability, said Brent Engelman, CCSSO's director of education data and information systems.

Identifying the unconnected students can also help school systems address inequitable access to learning, Engelman said. The digital divide disproportionately impacts students who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, low-income and/or reside in rural areas, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Some students with disabilities also face barriers to online learning.

Jessica Rosenworcel, acting chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, told K-12 Dive that, "Encouraging states, towns, and school districts to quantify where service is and is not in their own backyard can be a really helpful tool for ensuring federal and state funds for deployment and adoption go to the right places."

But before online learning can be available to all, reliable, high-speed internet has to be easily attainable and affordable — and that's where many digital divide school policies start.

Pushing for broadband

In the immediate weeks and months after the pandemic emerged, school districts like Hamilton Township provided Wi-Fi hotspots to students so they could strengthen internet access in homes. Some families also relied on LTE-enabled mobile devices, such as smartphones. 

Now, goals are centered on supplying affordable broadband to the homes of students who lack service. And while the demand is high, there is a lot of movement and funding spurred by the pandemic to help districts with this effort. 

K-12 Bridge to Broadband program, for example, helps states and districts purchase internet service through sponsored service agreements with internet providers. Chicago Public Schools, along with its city and nonprofit partners, last year set out to provide high-speed internet service to 100,000 students lacking access. The collaboration, called Chicago Connected, is using federal stimulus funding and donations to provide installation and services at no cost to eligible families for four years.

Another program that schools can promote, Siefer said, is the federal Emergency Broadband Benefit, which provides eligible families funding for internet service and purchases of devices. 

"It's the first time the federal government has been like, 'You know, internet's expensive. We have to address this,'" she said. 

Although $3.2 billion has been dedicated to the program, it's uncertain how long that funding will last, said Siefer, who recommends school districts form coalitions with neighboring school districts, local governments, housing authorities, libraries and others to advocate for and negotiate internet service agreements.

Rocco, from Hamilton Township, urges districts to push for broadband fiber optic connections to neighborhoods and areas where that infrastructure is missing. Many school system leaders are now some of the loudest proponents of broadband being treated as a public utility, like water and electricity. 

No one will understand the internet needs of students and educators if district leaders don't speak up, Rocco said. In many states, those messages are being heard. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 38 states and Puerto Rico had legislation in 2021 addressing broadband in issue areas such as educational institutions and schools, funding, infrastructure, municipal-run broadband networks, rural and underserved communities, and more.

Efficient and effective technology

Connecting students to the internet is just one piece of the enormous task of solving the digital divide. Another major part is making sure teachers, students and parents can safely navigate online learning.

As schools switched to remote learning in 2020, districts such as Broward County Public Schools in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, held Parent Universities to share directions for using online learning platforms. Districts also set up tech help lines, online tutoring sessions, and even made socially distant visits to individual students' homes to demonstrate how to log in and submit assignments. Professional development for teachers was also provided. 

Additionally, districts reinforced policies around digital citizenship so everyone was guided around the same parameters for access, etiquette, security and more. Kentucky students, for example, earn a Digital Driver's License through online courses and questions.

School systems will need to take a systemic approach to providing and funding these types of supports, although perhaps not at the same intensive levels as during the pandemic when everyone was learning and teaching remotely, said Chris Tienken, associate professor in the Department of Education Leadership, Management and Policy at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.

"The schools that were most effective with remote learning were able to develop electronic lessons that had instructions and supports for parents and guardians embedded in the lesson," Tienken said. 

And as the pandemic fades, schools will need to really consider how they use technology in both efficient and effective ways. Using technology effectively is providing students with experiences that they wouldn't otherwise have, Tienken said. 

"The jury's still out really in terms of the effectiveness of all of this technology, because if you're just using it as a substitute for paper and pencil, you might as well use the paper and pencil because it's cheaper," he said.

Building a 'modern equitable digital ecosystem'

Creating plans and policies around paying for all these investments is perhaps the biggest responsibility school leaders have, say education policy experts. An unprecedented amount of federal stimulus funding has been made available to school systems over the past year and much of that money has flexible allowances.

Another pot of federal funds — the nearly $7.2 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund — will help schools and libraries provide digital access to students and patrons through the familiar E-rate program. The FCC issued preliminary rules for the Emergency Connectivity Fund to address performance goals, the fair distribution of funds, permitted off-campus equipment and services, and more. 

School system advocacy groups, such as CCSSO, the Consortium for School Networking, and AASA, The School Superintendents Association, are asking that the rules for the fund be flexible and technology neutral so local and state leaders can make decisions about the use of funding based on their unique circumstances. 

In the rush to get and spend money to fix digital woes, school leaders need to have procedures in place so funds are used wisely, effectively and in consideration of future needs, education experts advise.  

"We want to talk about long-term and how do we sustain this and what does it take to build that modern, equitable, digital ecosystem," said CCSSO's Engelman. In fact, some groups, like EducationSuperHighway believe with the proper allocation of funds, the digital divide can be fixed.

Noelle Ellerson Ng, AASA's associate executive director of advocacy and governance, said it will also be imperative that communities don't forget this commitment made to heal the digital divide in education long after the pandemic is over. 

"We need to be mindful of how appropriate education policy can be in strengthening this position," she said adding that "education is the cornerstone of our civic society."

"The digital divide is not new and we had to shine a bright light on our very uncomfortable secrets that this existed before," Ellerson Ng said.