Access East Side
East Side Union High School District
In 2014, ESUHSD passed Measure I, a 'tech only' bond measure with 77% support. That provided the district with the ability to pursue their technology vision which included a project that involved: City of San Jose, Local Utilities, SmartWave and the District. The district provided the vision and much of the monies, the other organizations provided access, expertise and resources.
The goal was to provide robust wifi access to 8 neighborhoods in San Jose that were impacted. The goal was that 70% of homes could utilize the wifi and that the students would connect to their school network, safe and secure, their families utilizing SJ City wifi.
This allows the approximately 30% of students with no internet to have access along with the neighborhood. It also was designed to bolster and improve the connections for students without enough access to have readily available, fast internet. The project was fully complete in 2021 and remains in operation today.
Program Summary
We had about 30% of our students who lacked regular internet at home. We knew we had another 25% that had inadequate access and we also know that our community on the east side is heavily impacted by poverty, so, being able to access the internet would provide a universe of opportunity to students and families and a public very much in need of modern resources.
This program would be permanent and address essentially every single LCAP goal and state goal from providing equity (a core district goal) to providing learning opportunities, community engagement, aligning our resources to be a constant for our families, as we moved other digital textbooks, ensuring that learning resources: the textbook, the online help, tutoring, other exemplars would all be available when the student needed them and were ready. With much more access and capability than a hotspot, more uptime, more consistency and easier to use, we knew that students and families and the public would use it.
As we built out, Covid hit, but along with our Sprint Grant (for phones and hotspots) we were the rare district that had each student and staff member (not just teachers, but para educators, classified staff etc) ready to work in 3 days. Today, that access continues so that any person in our district, student or employee can utilize the internet at work and at home.
To date, we have added our feeder districts and schools to bring those students into our district seamlessly.
Program Goals
Access East Side provides daily access to the internet at home every day for about 50% of the students in the district. Providing greater than 70% of students access to the internet in our impacted neighborhoods and the system has been tuned to serve the requirements of our most needy students. Our cooperation with the City of San Jose, provides access to more than 50,000 public users a day. In the past year, we have included our elementary districts and their users as well.
Providing an average of 7.4mb of service per user allows our students to utilize tools like Zoom (which requires 960K for a meeting,) all of the applications required for school work at ESUHSD, YouTube, Netflix all within the protected environment of the school network.
The greatest indicator of satisfaction is the consistency of use nearly 70,000 unique ids join each day, to the bandwidth usage which amounts to 70 Terabytes per month. To provide context, the Library of Congress is about 10 Terabytes in size, so, usage is high.
We have surveyed families and students and the results are consistent. The access is useful and useable and everyone always wants to go faster and have access in even more places. Working with the City of San Jose, we are currently studying the positive effects of WIFI7 (a new derivation of WIFI) and received a grant to test with families to provide feedback on how to expand access for our users.
The usage tells the story. Our community needed this and we provided for them.
Impact on Students
Our first neighborhood became functional in 2015. The eighth neighborhood was live in 2019. Since then, we have begun a cycle of refresh for the neighborhoods (replacing radios and upgrading the technology.) Our tech bond was designed to sustain the project for 15 years. Three years ago, we were able to do a bond extension which the voters approved which should provide monies for the project for an additional 10 years. Once we started the program, we have also been fortunate to receive a range of grants and gifts to support the program.
Our initial Measure I technology bond received 77% yes votes. So very strong support. Our teammates at the City of San Jose have also found monies to contribute to upgrades and minor extensions in the neighborhoods due to public demand for even more access in other neighborhoods.
Our city council and our school board have had 17 different votes regarding issues and allotments for Access East Side. All have been unanimous. In working with our feeder districts, we have all but one who not only wanted to participate, but are happy to contribute to the maintenance and continued modernization of the system. Our parents and students rate our overall technology program very high and our Access East Side also as important and valuable.
Sustainability
Our district was one of 5 nationwide to pursue a specific tech bond. We are one of the only districts to create a partnership of City, Utility and School District to provide wifi for students, families and the general public. To create and use 'mesh networking' in this fashion is forward thinking and innovative to use one project to help not only our students and families and public, but also to bolster police and fire services and to improve the overall 'fiber plant' of the city especlally in areas that have been underserved is remarkable and one of a kind.
We believe our project is the future. Leveraging existing resources, bolstering them and getting multiple interested groups with disparate needs that intersect at key resources keeps costs down and increases services while building deep and abiding relationships within the community.
The key challenges are getting large organizations to the table and to determine how each can get what they need AND participate in helping each other. Each partner brought resources that were key and out of reach to the others. The district brought the concept, the technical understanding and the money, the city had access and the ability to permit work (at no cost) and the utility companies could provide access and expertise.
Successfully building those relationships and maintaining them is the key to our success.
Innovation
Our IT division has created a host of solutions with the intent that any other interested district could 'follow suit' and create the same successful solutions. We have completed our build out, but each spring, we work with our IT folks and the City Council to determine if there are neighborhoods that we need to serve and we create plans for that.
Attached are several documents to show our planning and methodology and we have been happy to help many districts pursue their goals as well. In our own area, we have invited and integrated our elementary and middle schools from our feeder districts providing them with the same service our students and staff get.
District with impacted students can work with their communities and local utilities to provide this for those segments of their population. Hot spots, buses with wifi are nice solutions that kind of work, but are very limited. Community WIFI is that town well where a hotspot is more like a jug of water. Granted, it may not be fully indoor plumbing (yet) but it is 'big access' and does not require any additional setup or pieces or parts or renewables for the user. It is simple and instant and something that districts can do with existing staff.
We did not add any staff to do this project. Tech bonds are a fantastic way to afford what is needed and a far better financial vehicle than traditional Municipal Bonds and popular with voters who want their young people and their impacted citizens to have digital opportunities.
Replicability
Supporting Data & Info
Video of Program
