When I returned to South High after winter break, I was facing WiFi problems I hadn’t seen before. I was aware that the district WiFi blocks certain apps and websites like Instagram and TikTok, but suddenly I was finding that now I couldn’t even search on safari, and my messages were slow to send, if they were sent at all. These obstacles were enough to be very frustrating, and to other students who were facing the same problem.
Ms. Penny and Mr. DiBonaventura, the instructional coaches at South High, were unaware of any recent policy changes that could be causing these issues. Although, they did have some advice for anyone that was struggling, which I found useful.
The problem seems to be that in order to use the school network, you have to sign in to it. Your device needs to prompt you to sign in though, and most devices aren’t prompting users. The solution is to go to the WiFi settings on your device, click on WPSGuest, then info, and select “forget network.” Then, when you select WPSGuest again, you can enter the password, F@stP@ss, and it will prompt you to accept the terms of service of WPS WiFi, effectively signing in. This should, at least temporarily, allow you to do what you previously could.
Regardless, nobody knows exactly what the issue is, which is a problem considering many students are struggling with it. “It used to be that personal devices would have to install a web certificate to have continued access, but they did away with that this year. Maybe that returned things to some sort of default setting and people with phones and tablets had to sign in to get access after that,” says Mr. DiBonaventura. It could also be a change made by the district that teachers weren’t aware of.
If this is a measure designed to decrease phone use in schools, it’s definitely not effective. All it does is remove a valuable learning tool, make communication more difficult, and create frustration. When the district makes changes like this and doesn’t let schools know, they are creating unnecessary confusion for everybody. But until we know more, students who are struggling should try the method suggested. Hopefully it will make things slightly easier.
