For Boise schools and broadband, ‘it’s a bandwidth issue’

David Roberts, technology program administrator for the Boise School District, said according to national standards, his district should have 26 gig of bandwidth for 2017. “And right now, going into this year, we have 1.5,” he said. “You can see that we are far from what the national standards are. But why are they recommending that? It’s a simple fact that access to high-speed broadband is now a component that’s a part of the infrastructure, it’s our air, it’s the electricity. … We can’t operate without broadband at this point.”

The Boise district, which has 26,000 students, has tripled its bandwidth in the last two years, he said. “We have purchased approximately 8,000 mobile devices for students since last July. We have opened up bring-your-own device opportunities at every level, from kindergarten through high school. … We have numerous cloud-based applications that are being used. … The expectation is the students can access the documents they’re creating, their work, anywhere, anytime, and we can’t do that without broadband.”

Roberts said he never dictates to any principal or school official what type of devices they should get; just how many. “I think if we say this is the only tool you can use … we are going to inhibit success,” he said. The Boise district doesn’t allow students to access YouTube, he noted. “It’s not a filter issue, it’s a bandwidth issue.”