After a ransomware attack caused Albuquerque Public Schools, the largest district in New Mexico, to close for two days in mid-January, K-12 cybersecurity experts stress cyberattacks against schools will only likely worsen in 2022.

The district “worked around the clock” with third-party experts to restore systems taken over by the ransomware attack, APS said in a statement. The compromised systems included those for managing safety procedures such as taking attendance, reaching out to family emergency contacts and assuring which authorized adults could pick students up from school, according to the district.

The district said it could not disclose further details about the ransomware attack because it is an ongoing investigation. Meanwhile, Albuquerque students must make up missed “cybersecurity snow days” at the end of this school year. 

Earlier in January, the Albuquerque Bernalillo County government offices also faced a ransomware attack temporarily closing many county buildings, according to a county news release.

As schools nationwide increased reliance on remote learning throughout the pandemic, they have likely become more susceptible to cyberattacks, according to a December 2020 joint report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. 

Schools have not always been a target, but now cybercriminals see K-12 as “low hanging fruit,” and an easy means to take money from a district is by withholding data or completing a ransomware attack, said Eric Lankford, regional director of K12 Security Information Exchange, a nonprofit focused on helping prevent cyberattacks in school districts.

When there’s a security gap and a district begins transitioning to remote learning, criminals will find ways to seize on opportunities, said Sara Spencer, CEO of SolonTek, a cybersecurity software provider. Schools, just like hospitals, gas pipelines and other critical institutions and services, could also be targeted by countries, such as China, Russia or Iran, she said.

“If we’re not secure and we don’t secure our systems, then I would expect nation-state actors to also take advantage of these environments, like schools,” Spencer said. 

Securing K-12 cybersecurity funds

Most K-12 schools do not have a dedicated staff member or budget for cybersecurity, Lankford said. But there are some federal funds funneling in that districts can use.

The two-month-old Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is set to provide $1 billion in federal grants to improve state and local government cybersecurity between 2022 and 2025. States must also match a certain percentage of the grants. But while this federal funding is available, it’s not easily accessible for districts, Lankford said.

To secure funds, states will have to submit a plan to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency with a statewide planning committee that represents a wide array of people, he said. And at least half of those members must also have experience in IT or cybersecurity.

“What we’re recommending is that schools reach out to their state CIO, CISO [chief information security officer], and say, ‘Hey, look I’m willing to serve as a public education representative on that planning committee,’” Lankford said. “That’s one source of funding. Is it guaranteed? Is it going to be very much? No.”

Lankford said he’s hopeful the report mandated by the K-12 Cybersecurity Act passed in October will open more people’s eyes to the matter since the issue will be backed by a government study. 

“Everybody around K-12 understands physical security,” he said. “Cybersecurity needs to have the same urgency and importance as physical security.”

Working with available resources

If more federal dollars become available for K-12 cybersecurity, it’s important those funds are spent in the right way, Lankford said. Schools need to first focus on the basics, which include looking closely at third-party vendor security measures.

Some basic ways to enhance K-12 cybersecurity include issuing students laptops controlled by virtual private networks, Spencer said. 

Multi-factor authentication can prevent 90% of cyberattacks, she said. It’s also key for districts to begin integrating cybersecurity education into classes to prevent ransomware attacks that can start through phishing emails sent to students.

While there are a lot of free resources available through CISA, nonprofits and ed tech companies to help districts navigate cybersecurity needs, Spencer said there’s still not enough federal funding.

It’s also possible districts could address cybersecurity needs by using available funds from the $122.7 billion awarded to districts nationwide in supplemental Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief aid provided through the American Rescue Plan, said Robert Redd, senior director of enterprise networking at ConvergeOne, an IT services provider. 

Redd considers cybersecurity a way to prevent learning loss, as cyberattacks can cause districts to shut down for days. But addressing K-12 cybersecurity is going to take a collaborative effort among federal, state and local agencies as well as ed tech companies, he said. 

“It’s going to continue to be a staggering problem because it’s so lucrative. The target is learning and education,” Redd said. “Districts need to have an answer.”

Texting parents can be an effective and inexpensive way to communicate the importance of student attendance, but to succeed district leaders should evaluate their needs and resources as well as understand the IT infrastructure required to meet their goals, advises a report and toolkit issued last month by the Institute of Education Sciences. 

The texting recommendations are based on previous research that showed texting about attendance could be more effective if messages progressed to include more information and motivation for parents. This adaptive approach lowered expected chronic absenteeism rates by 3.5 to 7.3 percentage points for elementary students with a history of high absences, according to the research. 

The pandemic has heightened concerns about low school attendance rates, with several school systems reporting increases in chronic absenteeism. Parent communication, in addition to absenteeism data monitoring, interventions for attendance barriers, and other strategies, can help combat low attendance rates, advises Attendance Works, an initiative aimed at improving school attendance.

Chronic absence, which is defined as missing 10% or more of school days for any reason including excused, unexcused absences and suspensions, can lead to students having difficulty learning to read by 3rd grade, staying on track academically in middle school, and graduating from high school, according to Attendance Works.

An analysis of attendance rates at 17 California school districts showed chronic absenteeism rates spiked from 11.2% in October 2019 to 27.4% in October 2021. Black and Hispanic/Latino students had higher rates of chronic absenteeism than White and Asian students in those districts. 

“This year, we believe chronic absence rates are even more elevated given the rough start to school with buildings opening for in-person instruction just as the delta variant was spreading,” Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, told K-12 Dive in an email in November. 

IES's 99-page toolkit's recommendations are for district administrators and attendance staff, as well as employees managing student information systems and attendance communications. The advice, which includes timelines and considerations for management, costs, vendor agreements and system capacities, are specifically for texting parents of elementary-aged students.

Two approaches are suggested:

• Basic. These messages can be sent to all parents to emphasize the importance of school attendance. They can be automated and prescheduled. Basic messages can also be same-day notifications to parents whose children were absent that day and can also include the total number of absences the student has over the year.

• Intensified. These messages to parents can be interactive and two-way communications that provide more detailed information about their child's attendance. They can be sent from a specific staff member who offers their contact information to discuss individualized supports. Intensified messages could also be weekly automated texts asking parents to set goals for perfect attendance for the upcoming week.

Other tips in the toolkit for school attendance texts to parents include: 

• Keep text messages to fewer than 160 characters. If more characters are needed, consider sending two short messages in rapid sequence.
• Use abbreviations only if they are easily understood.
• Avoid emojis because they are not viewed as professional.
• Make sure messages are culturally and linguistically sensitive.
• Send messages in parents' native languages.
• Ensure messages are actionable, tailored and personalized depending on the student's circumstances.

In 1998, when the World Wide Web was an exciting novelty, several government agencies and advocates raised alarms about the unregulated collection of children's personal information from website owners. 

A Federal Trade Commission survey conducted at the time — when about 14% of children used the internet at home or at school — found 89% of websites marketed for children had collected personal information directly from young users. Most troubling, the FTC wrote in a report, was the ease with which predators could communicate with children in chat rooms or online forums.

These "deep concerns" led to the passage of laws to safeguard children's personal online data, with the aim to prevent the unintended exposure of the details of a child's life and to keep kids safe.

But more than 20 years later, educators, parents, researchers and lawmakers are continuing to sound alarms about the vulnerability of children's online personal data as nearly every child is now able to access the internet from home, school or a smartphone in their pocket. 

Federal laws and regulations have brought oversight and the promotion of best practices, as well as partnerships between ed tech companies and school systems. But some of those laws are now outdated or misinterpreted, critics say. 

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, for example, was enacted in 2000 and last updated in 2013, just as social media really took off.

Since then, most state education departments and legislatures have developed stricter policies to further protect children's online privacy. According to the Data Quality Campaign, 45 states and Washington, D.C., enacted new student data privacy laws between 2014 and 2020.

Yet while school systems are required to protect children's online data, at the same time they are encouraged or mandated to collect and keep a vast amount of information about each student. 

These data points include students' academic standing, images and videos, creative content, discipline referrals, social-emotional and physical well-being, special education records, socioeconomic status, and much more. 

And often, school systems are putting their trust into third-party ed tech providers to safeguard this student information. 

Although monitoring for online threats against students and data breaches has become more sophisticated over the years, some privacy advocates worry about the potential for inequitable tracking of student online activity and the security of so much data. 

A survey of district IT leaders from the Consortium for School Networking names privacy and security of student data as the No. 2 top technology priority after cybersecurity.

In fact, the management and protection of student online data was a system already under strain and conflicting missions, and then in 2020, when the pandemic forced every student to learn from home virtually, things got even more complex.

Safeguarding student data

Nancy Byrnes has been IT director of Fairfield Public Schools in Connecticut since 2000. Over the years, she's seen technology evolve from computer labs students visited a few times a week to a situation where every student in grades 3-12 and many staff have school-issued devices. 

In total, the 9,300-student district is managing about 12,000 devices and 67 paid applications, as well as many free apps.

Before the pandemic, Fairfield had created a streamlined process for vetting new web-based tools that required consideration of each application's instructional value, as well as federal and state student privacy compliance.

"What we're trying to do is avoid babysitting apps," Byrnes said. "We really don't want to give a kid something to do that's not really directly related to their education."

To verify an app would not put student personal data at risk, Byrnes next looks at its terms of use and confirms the website owner does not have a reputation as a "bad player." The developer is then asked to agree to the district's student privacy compliance pledge, which includes state and federal protocols. 

A districtwide online system, operated by ed tech company LearnPlatform, allows teachers and administrators to request new applications, which brings efficiency to the process and helps reinforce the message to educators about the need to protect student data, Byrnes said. The district publicly posts the names of companies operating district-use applications, along with each application's student privacy compliance status.

A review of 1,504 district websites from September 2018 to April 2020 by the U.S. Department of Education's Student Privacy Policy Office showed just 4% of districts post on their websites a data inventory listing information collected about their students. Twelve percent of district websites had navigation menus including a section indicating where to find data practices and student privacy information.

In Fairfield, the app approval process can take months as district staff verify collection of student information is only for the district's educational purposes and will not include gathering personally identifiable information for marketing or other noneducational purposes.

When the pandemic hit in March 2020 the Connecticut Department of Education implemented a provisional compliance pledge program allowing districts to use applications vetted at the state level rather than needing to also enforce their own agreements. 

There was still a need for district-level oversight, but it helped simplify the process during those hectic months when learning pivoted online, Byrnes said.

Even when all the best practices are being followed, protection of student data is not foolproof. For instance, when the district ceases to use an application, the tool's owners are supposed to purge all student data as required by the compliance pledge. But it's hard to prove this actually happens, Byrnes said. 

In rare cases, ed tech companies have folded, making it nearly impossible to ensure students' private data has been permanently deleted, according to Byrnes. 

"Nobody knows where that data is," she said.

Navigating federal, state rules

Several federal laws require schools to protect student privacy and aim to prevent inappropriate online behavior. Each is administered by different agencies of the federal government:

• The Family Education Rights & Privacy Act (1974): This law gives certain privacy rights to parents over their children’s education records. When students turn 18, those rights transfer to them. The most recent amendment came in 2012. The U.S. Department of Education oversees this act.
  
  The Ed Department also oversees regulations for the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (1984), which confer rights on parents and students in survey participation, such as notification and an opt-out option.
• The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (2000): The Federal Trade Commission has authority over this act, which limits operators of websites and online services from collecting personal data on children under 13 without parental consent.
• The Children’s Internet Protection Act (2000): This law requires K-12 schools and libraries using E-rate discounts to restrict children's exposure to obscene content. The law also requires schools to monitor online activity of minors and educate students about appropriate online behavior. The Federal Communications Commission oversees this law, and rules implementing it were updated in 2011.

Some student data privacy experts say some of the laws are outdated or misunderstood. A bipartisan bill in Congress would update COPPA by prohibiting internet companies from collecting personal information from anyone 13-15 years old without parental consent. The legislation, which has not yet been acted on, would also create an "eraser button" requiring companies to let parents and kids eliminate personal information from a child or teen when "technologically feasible."

In September, several organizations — including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the State Educational Technology Directors Association — urged Congress to update CIPA by clarifying the law does not require schools to conduct "broad, invasive, and constant surveillance of students’ lives online." 

Increased student online activity means districts' responsibilities for monitoring activity for bullying, potential violence and inappropriate content has grown, but schools need to be thoughtful about the negative consequences of collecting all this data, said Elizabeth Laird, CDT's director of equity in civic technology. 

The groups are calling for clarification around CIPA because school systems should not be monitoring student online activity just for legal compliance purposes, Laird said. "They should be able to explain why they're doing it, connect it to some larger goal, and not have this kind of unintentional expansion and constant monitoring of students," she said.

Still others say the federal laws themselves aren't the problem — it's the mismatch of state laws and regulations that are financially and operationally burdensome to local school systems and ed tech providers. 

Since 2014, more than 1,000 state student privacy laws have been introduced across the country, and about 130 have been enacted, according to Amelia Vance, vice president of youth and education privacy at the Future of Privacy Forum.

Some state student privacy laws, while well-intended, don't fit with practical applications in schools, data privacy experts say. 

"It's so vital to protect student privacy," Vance said. "But far too often, legislators didn't talk to people on the ground about what were the best ways to do that."

In Louisiana, for example, some families had trouble accessing free meals at the onset of the pandemic because state rules prevented schools from sharing data about students who receive free or reduced-price school meals with agencies that helped distribute food during school closures. Several months later, the state legislature passed a bill giving schools temporary authority to share limited student information for this purpose.

Collaborating on data protections

Doug Casey, chair of the board of directors for the State Educational Technology Directors Association, said one of the most promising proposals in the COPPA legislation is the "eraser button" that would allow users to eliminate children's personal information in apps. 

That kind of request to tech companies currently is easier said than done, he said, because it is difficult to simply delete data elements if they are commingled with other data points or if the data structure was redeveloped without delete capacity built in. 

"To just sort of say, ‘Press the magic button and it all goes away,’ from an engineering perspective, it isn't all that easy," said Casey, who is also executive director of the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology.

Fairfield Public Schools is working with Infinite Campus, the company that manages its student information system, to find solutions for purging student data that's no longer needed. "I don't want to have the exposure of information that I no longer need to retain, because that just gives the bad guys the opportunity to get information that we shouldn't have had in that file cabinet, if you will, because you no longer need it," Byrnes said.

In some cases, antiquated record retention laws are contributing to the difficulty for school districts in managing sensitive data, Vance said. 

In New Jersey, school districts must keep certain student records for 100 years. Those records include former students' date of birth, name of parents, gender, health history and immunizations, standardized assessment results, grades, attendance, classes attended and more.

Casey said a positive trend over the last five years is a closer working relationship between educators and ed tech companies and developers. This relationship, he said, is important on both sides: Ed tech developers and engineers need to better understand districts' needs and responsibilities, and school systems need to understand ed tech companies' constraints.

"I think we tend to think about federal legislation, state legislation in school districts, but what we don't necessarily think so much about is the ed tech providers that we do depend on, and so they need to be part of the consideration," Casey said. 

Sara Kloek, senior director of education policy at Software and Information Industry Association, a trade association representing the ed tech industry, said since the association's members consider school systems their clients, their business models rely on being responsive to schools’ needs, including student data protections.

Collaboration between educators, privacy advocates and ed tech companies has led to development of national best practices, and those have helped ed tech companies use common terminology and practices even as they attempt to meet different state regulations and respond to individual district priorities, Kloek said.

According to Vance, highlighting model approaches has been another effective way for school systems to learn about best practices. She points to Utah and Maryland as states that took deliberate approaches to understand their student data privacy challenges and find solutions. Utah also created several state-level positions to work on student privacy issues, including trainings for district-level staff.

Thoughtful data governance in school systems is a powerful way to protect student information, as is consistent training of teachers about safeguarding student data, Casey and others said. In the past, a school system's IT department would be the gatekeeper to all these student data elements. But now teachers have the ability to access student information systems and pull data fields to share with ed tech providers.

"It really comes down to decisions about what to share should be driven by what's the need to know, what's the benefit to the teacher and the student of sharing every single data element?” Casey said. “Because if there's no direct benefit to it, they shouldn't be sharing it."

 

As calls for enhancing K-12 cybersecurity guidance continue, parents are increasingly concerned about student privacy and security protection, according to a report released Monday by the Center for Democracy and Technology. In July, 69% of parents surveyed said they were worried about student tech privacy, up from 60% of parents echoing that same concern in February. 

On top of that, 93% of the 1,663 K-12 parents surveyed said it is very or somewhat important for districts to inform them about how schools will use student data. Despite this increased interest in engagement, only 44% of parents reported their school or district had asked for input regarding the use of student data and technology. 

One way to increase engagement between schools and parents is to continue providing teacher training on student data and privacy, said Elizabeth Laird, director of equity in civic technology at CDT. In fact, 66% of teachers said they’ve had substantial training in 2021, compared to 56% of teachers in 2020, the CDT report said.

The recent spike in parent concern over student data privacy could be tied to the COVID-19 pandemic placing more school technology in the home for remote learning, said Linnette Attai, a privacy education consultant for the Consortium for School Networking. 

It’s also possible the increased activism among parents on education issues overall could be driving concerns, Laird said. 

The report did reveal parents are most concerned about data breaches in schools, Laird said. Overall, 2020 was also a “record-breaking” year for cyber attacks against U.S. schools, partially because of the shift to remote learning during the pandemic, according to the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center. 

“I think that [parent concern] is related to the record number of cyber attacks. Not just in education, but in the private sector. It’s on the news a lot,” Laird said. 

Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN, added cybersecurity and data privacy are two sides of the same coin. Krueger said cybersecurity ensures a network is protected, while privacy is often defined and managed through policy. 

“Unfortunately while we’ve been working on privacy policies for many decades in schools, cybersecurity is underfunded and underprotected,” Krueger said. “Part of that is fundamental. It’s not a core competency at most school districts.”

A key to improving parent trust over student privacy is starting the community engagement process transparently, he said. Laird and Attai agreed. 

When schools begin to consider deploying a new technology or sharing student data, they should engage with students and parents for input before implementing changes, Laird said.

“You don’t want to engage them after you’ve already made a decision. That’s not engagement,” Laird said. 

The CDT report also found teachers who have received training on data privacy were more likely to feel comfortable engaging with students and parents over privacy policies and procedures. Since more teachers reported receiving training within the past year, Laird advised districts to continue educating teachers on data privacy to improve community engagement.

Attai said implementing technology in schools is a balancing act, especially considering the concerns parents have over school surveillance related to student discipline cases. According to the report, 61% of parents expressed concern about schools sharing student data with law enforcement.

It’s important to approach technology in education with diligence, thoughtfulness and care, she said. There should also be a specific goal in mind and plan in place when implementing new technology, Attai said. The CDT report, she said, is a reminder for districts to take a step back and reassess where they stand.

“There are boundaries. There are lines between what is monitoring and what is surveillance and what is looking out for safety and what is targeting,” Attai said. “You need to take some care to make sure you don’t cross those lines.”

In his 23 years as a barbering instructor, Marwin McKnight never imagined he would one day incorporate coding into his classes. 

But in November, McKnight began working with his students at Fairfield Career and Technical Center in South Carolina using a program called Barbershop Computing. 

This moment marked the first time Barbershop Computing was implemented in the U.S. with barbering students, said Dominick Sanders, computer science state supervisor for the South Carolina Department of Education. 

The program uses basic block-based coding to help students create hair designs. Users can code to decide the size of the clipper, as well as the direction it moves, to create a style on a simulated head. 

Utilizing barbershops to increase access

Michael Lachney, an assistant professor in educational psychology and educational technology at Michigan State University, spearheaded Barbershop Computing developed by Culturally Situated Design Tools. He said in an email that his team wanted to explore if barbers could be a source of innovation for computer education. 

“Black barbers and barbershops have a long history of being centers for positive change in local communities, from participating in literacy campaigns to spreading public health information and being brokers between individuals and mental health resources,” Lachney said.

While a goal of the program is to come up with innovative ways to increase participation of Black boys and young men in computer science, Lachney said he hopes students’ interest in barbering as a career will also grow. 

There’s a major initiative in South Carolina looking to broaden access and participation in computer science to underserved and underrepresented students, Sanders said. The Barbershop Computing program helps bridge that gap, Sanders said.

The recently released State of Computer Science Education report found while computer science course offerings have noticeably increased, disparities persist in access. Hispanic/Latino students are 1.4 times less likely than their White and Asian classmates to enroll in computer science, while Black students are enrolling in computer science classes at rates proportional to their state population, the report noted.

Lachney and his team are continuing to work with other educators and districts to incorporate the program into classes. 

A new creative outlet

Barbers often hand-draw a hair design before they sit their client down and begin a haircut, McKnight said. The Barbershop Computing program gives students a new way to create designs they could have never drawn themselves, he said, adding that, in a way, it’s a whole new medium for barbers to create in. 

“Everything about their artwork when it comes down to it is creativity, is in your mind,” McKnight said.

The class has helped McKnight’s students develop problem solving and creative thinking skills, too.

One of McKnight’s students, Kensley Copeland, is a junior at Fairfield Central High School and used the program to design a star with additional lines. 

Copeland said he has participated in computer science classes before, which helped prepare him for the Barbershop Computing exercise. He wants to pursue a barbering career, adding he can see himself using code in his work moving forward. 

In a way, Copeland said, it was fun to mess up at times and use the wrong code, because errors would create weird hair designs that amused him. The coding was initially challenging, but it got easier as he progressed, he said. 

With the future growing more digital, Copeland said it’s important to include coding in barbering, as well.

McKnight also plans to continue using the program in future classes. He envisions barbers in the future utilizing the program to help create and then sell designs to barbershops. He also said he would love to see the program used in a competition format between students.

A strong majority of schools and libraries — 86% — agree or strongly agree that insufficient home internet is a significant problem in their community, according to the 11th annual E-rate survey from Funds For Learning, a consulting firm that supports schools and libraries in navigating the federal funding process.

The survey further found the E-rate program is vital for schools and libraries, as 97% of respondents said they have more students and patrons connected to the internet because of the program.  

While the program overseen by the Federal Communications Commission has worked to help subsidize school internet connections and telecommunications infrastructure, most of the 2,164 survey respondents want to see cybersecurity included in the program, as well as expanded E-rate support for internet connections off school and library campuses.

The Funds For Learning survey findings identify the need for closing the homework gap experienced by students who have insufficient home internet access, making it difficult for them to complete digital homework assignments. 

The homework gap posed a challenge before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the switch to online learning for significant periods during the past two years due to school closures called further attention to the problem.

The 25-year-old E-rate program had a $4.276 billion funding cap for fiscal year 2021 to provide discounts on telecommunications and internet access to schools depending on their poverty level. The FCC service is also provided to eligible libraries. 

With nearly 50,000 students, the El Paso Independent School District in Texas has seen a need to address the homework gap — particularly during the pandemic— through increased internet access for homes in its community, said Lilibeth Flores, an information technology program coordinator who works with E-rate funding for the district. But strong internet access in school buildings is needed just as much for student success, Flores said.

“As important as it was [to have internet] at home, it’s even more so at school within a site to have access, to have consistency, sustainability, to be able to rely on these services for learning,” Flores said. “The needs have to be reevaluated.”

Although continued federal investment is likely to ensure connectivity for students both at home and school, that may not necessarily be through the E-rate program, said Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director of advocacy and governance for AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

“I think there’s an inroad to look at how we can have E-rate leveraged, whether it is an expansion of E-rate or continued federal funding,” Ellerson Ng said. 

Although 97% of survey respondents said they wish to see support for cybersecurity in the E-rate program, Ellerson Ng thinks that expansion is less probable.

“While there is a role for the federal government in helping to address cybersecurity, the involvement of education should be part of a broader cybersecurity package,” Ellerson Ng said.

But there is a “full-on consensus” by respondents that internet access at schools is pointless without cybersecurity, said Funds For Learning CEO John Harrington. Since 2016, about 1,180 cyber-related disruptions have occurred in public schools, and a report from K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center this year acknowledged 2020 as a “record-breaking” period for cyber attacks against U.S. schools.

“Without cybersecurity, without reliable internet, the foundation of what we’re trying to achieve here gets really shaky,” Harrington said.

COVID-19 has further shifted the E-rate program by causing a skyrocketing in the number of school-issued devices in students’ hands, he said. 

“COVID compressed the timelines, so it did not change, really, the course of education technology,” Harrington said. “We’ve been on this slow and steady march towards 1:1 initiatives, online digital learning platforms, all of that stuff, for years. What COVID did is it took probably the next 5 to 7 years and compressed them down to 5 to 7 months.” 

Now that more students have devices, there will be a greater need for wireless internet access points on school campuses, Harrington said. This uptick in student devices has made E-rate more necessary than ever, because schools need the program’s support to make these reliable, needed internet connections possible.

In fact, the Funds For Learning survey found 88% of respondents will need to increase their broadband connections within the next three years.

Harrington agreed: “The more students are using the internet, these devices, the more there are media-rich opportunities to learn and engage. It just drives that bandwidth requirement.