Improving internet for rural schools

Rogue River, Ore. – Governor Kate Brown signed a bill that would give funding to expand high speed internet to rural parts of Oregon. Nine districts are applying.

Among them is Pinehurst School District 94 and Rivers Edge Charter School in Rogue River.

The charter school has internet in its classrooms, but are hoping to get better service to the area overall.

Since they are a charter school, most of student’s school work is completed at home and submitted online. But without a reliable internet source, the school says they are falling behind and unable to complete their work.

“For those people that are way out there they have no way of getting on the internet so the kids can’t submit their work they can’t check what needs to be done until they actually come to the school. So it really hurts the kids in getting their school work done and knowing what to do sometimes,” said Denise Purrier, administrative assistant.

Rivers Edge says some of their students can’t even pick up an internet connection without using their phone’s hot spot.

According to the state 40 school districts don’t have adequate internet access. If funding is available they hope to open up the opportunity to more schools in the future.

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