County’s digital divide hurts students’ ability to learn online during Coronavirus pandemic

By Jacob Wheeler

Sun editor

Each time a singular noun popped up on the screen, Jalen Anderson moved and clicked the mouse to “whack” it. The eight-year-old, who lives in Peshawbestown and just started virtual third grade at Suttons Bay Public Schools, sat with her mother NaTasha to play the online whack-a-mole game, which was intended to help Jalen learn the difference between singular and plural words.

“We did it together and were high-fiving each other every time she got it,” said NaTasha. “But when it came time to complete the project and submit it to her teacher, that’s when (our Internet) became an issue. We missed completing the actual assignment.”

Instead of the gratification of finishing a job well done, Jalen and NaTasha watched the dreaded spinning wheel on their screen before they lost their online connection. The Andersons have satellite Internet in their home, which doesn’t offer the consistent bandwidth Jalen needs to succeed in an online learning environment that requires streaming videos, educational games, and meeting apps such as Zoom. Ironically, their neighbors just 1,000 feet away have high-speed Charter Spectrum in their home.

Faced with the prohibitive expense of paying to run fiber-optic lines into their home, or live with subpar satellite Internet, the Andersons find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide—an acute crisis in Leelanau County and throughout rural America, particularly at a time when so many students are getting their education virtually through a computer during the Coronavirus global pandemic. (Real estate agents have learned that the lack of high-speed Internet in many areas of the County also poses an impediment for would-be home buyers who hope to move “up north” and work their jobs remotely.)

Suttons Bay returned to “in-seat” learning the week after Labor Day weekend; all Leelanau County public schools are offering the option of in-person or online learning. But NaTasha Anderson chose not to run the risk of exposing her children to COVID-19. Jalen has asthma, and NaTasha is also concerned about the health of her 15-month-old son Cree.

NaTasha voluntarily left her job at the Northport Highlands assisted living facility in April, at the height of the pandemic scare. “I left there because I was concerned about the health and wellbeing of my family,” she said. “It was a tough decision, and it hurts us financially. I did enjoy caring for elderly people. But I didn’t want to take any chances. I had to put health first.”

She homeschools Jalen using curriculum from Suttons Bay while her husband James works as an excavator and truckdriver. The third grader has been mostly cut off from seeing her friends during the pandemic. Instead, NaTasha says her daughter finds solace and peace in her schoolwork, which includes an hour of English, math, science and social studies each day.

“It bothers her not being able to see her friends. But she also understands what COVID is and why we’re doing this. It’s temporary. We’re not going to do this forever.”

Internet providers jockey for position

Leelanau County’s rolling hills, inland lakes, forests, and dunes make this peninsula a beautiful place to live and visit as a popular tourism destination. But the bucolic landscape also means notorious “dead zones” for cellular phone and high-speed Internet access. 

Since last fall, County Commissioner Patricia Soutas-Little has spearheaded a public-private partnership with the Leelanau Peninsula Economic Foundation’s “Leelanau Internet Futures Team” (LIFT), which formed in 2016 to explore options for bringing more high-speed Internet to the County. The committee includes emergency responders, IT staff, and representatives from schools, churches and businesses. 

Companies hoping to lease space on cell phone towers to deliver fixed point wireless Internet service include Jim Selby of Aspen Wireless and Ray Leppien, CFO of Agri-Valley Communications. Nevertheless, fiber optic cables, though expensive to install, are the best way to guarantee high-speed Internet. The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians began an ambitious project two years ago to lay miles of fiber along state and county roads. “Eventually, we hope to compete directly with Charter and other providers …,” tribal chairman Sam McClellan told the Leelanau Enterprise in 2018. Meanwhile, tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Elon Musk has positioned his SpaceX satellites over northern Michigan and could emerge as a satellite Internet provider.

“I think there’s a great deal of interest right now with utility companies,” said Soutas-Little. “The need for Internet during COVID has been a major factor, whereas before there wasn’t real traction in the community. People didn’t realize until the pandemic how reliant on high-speed service we are—whether it’s medicine, education, business, or schooling. This brought it to the forefront.

“With Zoom meetings being held, our whole life has changed in terms of how we do business and how our children are educated. The speed we have now is not going to serve us in the future.”

LIFT recently conducted a home-based Internet sufficiency study in Leelanau County to see how reliable the system was for home-based Internet. 

“It’s the way of the future,” said Soutas-Little. “We will never go back to ‘normal’. The ‘new normal’ will rely heavily on high-speed broadband. My only concern is that we can’t move things fast enough. People need it yesterday. The Internet should be a utility, not looked at as a luxury.”

Schools to the rescue

The county’s four public schools are taking proactive steps to bridge the digital divide. Suttons Bay Virtual School distributes Chromebook laptops to each student who learns online and Jetpack MiFi wireless “hotspot” devices to each family with a virtual student. NaTasha Anderson hopes soon to receive a laptop and MiFi device that Jalen will borrow for the schoolyear. She hopes it will help their Internet connectivity and make online lessons easier for her daughter.

Suttons Bay superintendent Casey Petz estimates that 10-20 percent of families with students in the school district have spotty access to high-speed Internet. Suttons Bay owned 100 MiFi hotspots prior to the pandemic and ordered an additional 100 this past spring when schools closed and went virtual in March. Approximately 60 of those hotspots are currently being used by students. The devices and monthly data charges cost the school somewhere between $15,000 and $30,000, Petz estimates.

Still, MiFi hotspots won’t work for families who live in areas without cell phone coverage. Some families may have to drive between 1-5 miles up the road to get a signal. Petz says that Suttons Bay also offers wireless access in the school parking lot.

Glen Lake and Leland public schools also recognize the crisis facing some of their families. Like Suttons Bay, they are gearing up to help those on the wrong side of the digital divide with wireless products.

Grant Wright, Glen Lake’s technology director estimated that approximately 20 percent of families in the school district had less than ideal Internet at home when the Spring semester suddenly went online. Glen Lake is also investing in MiFi Jetpacks.

“Families are more aware now of their Internet situation after our experience at the end of last school year,” said Wright. “Some families thought their Internet was slow but going to be good enough. But the way in which students use web conferencing now … it didn’t perform like they were expecting.”

Likewise, Leland conduct a survey of families in their school district in late August. More than 20 percent of 254 families who responded said their Internet connection at home was less than reliable. Leland plans to support those families with cellular-enabled iPads.

“We also extended our WiFi signal, so that parents close to the school building could pick up the signal,” said Leland superintendent Stephanie Long. “For kids who don’t have any access at all, we still run buses and we can bring them to the school.”

Long worries that if a community spread of COVID forces schools to close their doors, families who cannot get a WiFi signal or cellular service in their homes will be left in a tough spot.

“A lot of this is about geography,” said Long. “We have teachers on our staff who live in dead zones.”

The Jetpack devices and Chromebooks have made the difference for Maple City resident Naomi Sobczak, who has homeschooled three kids while enrolling them in Suttons Bay Virtual School (her oldest is now attending college online). Her younger kids include Lance, age 13, in 7th grade, and Lavender, age 7, in first grade.

“We’ve already been online, so for us (virtual education during the COVID pandemic) is not such a culture shock,” said Sobczak a northern Michigan native who moved back here from rural California. “The school year is going well so far. The kids are online for school about 3-4 hours each day. But they’re doing a lot of homeschooled, hands-on activities, too.”

Sobczak says her Jetpack MiFi is a workable alternative, but videos don’t stream as quickly as they would with wired, high-speed Internet.

“I think it’s a great temporary solution for us. But it’s not a great solution if someone has to pay for it personally. It’s much more expensive than wired Internet.”