GPRA 10.  Percentage of students without access to the internet at home or school

Definition. Students can have access to the internet via computing devices like desktops or laptops provided in a computer lab or during their regular English class. Students could also have access to the internet at school or at home using tablets (e.g., iPads), cell phones or smart phones (i.e., Wi-Fi or 3G/4G mobile device), and through video game systems like the Wii, TV/cable packages, e-readers, and MP3 players. For the purposes of this GPRA indicator, students who have access through any of these types of technologies both at home and at school qualify as having access.

Internet access at home is measured via the School Climate and Connectedness Family Survey, while internet access at school is measured via the School Climate and Connectedness Staff Survey. In order to combine these two indicators to understand which students had internet access only at home or only at school, both at home and at school, or did not have access at home or school, we did a school-level analysis of the staff survey in order to create a binary indicator of whether or not a school had internet access. If less than 50% of staff respondents answered positively to the question “While at school, my students have reliable access to the internet,” then, for students at that school, we considered that NO reliable internet access at school.

On the 2022 SCCS survey, all schools met the 50% staff threshold to of having reliable internet for their students.

10a - Students who attend a school with no internet whose families indicated that they DO have internet access at home (0 - all schools have internet)

10b - Students whose families indicated that they DO NOT have internet access at home

10c - Students whose families indicated that they DO have internet access at home

10c - Students who attend a school with no internet whose families indicated that they DO NOT have internet access at home (0 - all schools have internet)

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School/home access and School issued devices:

School districts in STEPS communities provide devices on a one-to-one basis. The STEPS AK initiative is no longer actively engaged in these efforts since COVID.

The data source for this indicator is the School Climate and Connectedness Survey. Most recent results were shared in our previous report.

All STEPS districts/ schools maintain a one-to-one device to student ratio and support families to get connected to the internet at home. These activities penetrate the entire footprint although most of this activity is match funded.

Schools and tribes provide students and families with the devices (chromebooks, ipads, etc.) they need to access learning online. During the pandemic school districts and community partners worked to make internet access available in the home or at hubs. At this point in time, school districts are more focused on providing internet access within the school building.

School districts successfully scaled up quickly during the pandemic and leveraged other federal funds that were available through programs like the ARP. Tlingit & Haida also purchased chromebooks for its Tribal citizens to access online learning opportunities.

A challenge has been maintaining focus on this goal. At the height of the pandemic it was clear that the lack of home internet access was an equity issue, but it has been difficult to sustain focus on that issue when the focus is on returning to the school building and moving away from online learning. As families age out of the district and new families join the K-12 system, it will be important to continue to understand and act on inequities in internet access in the footprint.

We will continue to support districts in identifying internet and device needs of students, especially economically disadvantaged students, however, no significant work is planned in this area.