On the topic of slow Internet connection at school:

I believe that a problem at South High is the slow Wifi, because it doesn’t allow teachers to teach and students to learn. This is why slow Wifi is an issue, because if teachers are trying to teach and they need to use their laptops to teach but the Wifi, is slow and doesn’t allow teachers to use their laptops to teach the material they have online, students won’t be able to learn properly.

Also, students might have trouble trying to access any assignments online because the tab stays buffering. For example, last year during MCAS the test was done on Chromebooks and because of this, it made the internet slow due to the amount of students taking the test. Other students who weren’t taking MCAS had work to do on Chromebooks and the tabs wouldn’t load and would stay buffering for a long amount of time.

Even though the MCAS isn’t being taken currently the internet is still slow. The issue is that the school focused on getting good technology but didn’t think too much about getting better Wifi that could withstand the amount of students and teachers using the internet. School Wifi is often slow due to a combination of factors, including outdated infrastructure, insufficient bandwidth, and heavy usage. This also includes old routers and switches that were implemented when the school was made. Also, if schools aren’t regularly updating the internet software and doing maintenance, it will cause old data to make the internet slower. Worcester Public Schools are currently at 670 kbps per student but the ideal goal for daily use of reliable internet is 1 Mbps per student. In total they pay $7,856 monthly for the internet which is a total of 10 Gbps. 

Others may believe that Worcester Public Schools already pay a lot of money on the Internet and that even though it’s slow it works. They also might say that students don’t need better Wifi because they only need to do assignments and aren’t actually using it for work or more important things. But they are wrong because if the Wifi is always slow and laggy then how will the students be able to learn and earn an education if the internet takes a while to work. 

A solution could be more fundraisers like selling baked goods or snacks. Other possible solutions could be having the federal government or Massachusetts government give more money towards schools. Worcester public schools could also start a GoFundMe for the internet and try to show people how donating helps and why slow internet at schools interfere with teaching and learning. Worcester public schools could also try to manage their budget better and try to spend a little more on the resources for learning. If you would like to check out information about school internet throughout the U.S. check out this website Connect K-12.

– Josiah Arocho ’24