If you’ve spent any time at Bronx Science, you’ve probably heard complaints about (or experienced for yourself) the difficulty of connecting to the Internet from school premises. That’s about to change! The school administration has an assertive plan for increasing bandwidth.
Here’s what Principal Donahue said about it in her welcome letter, which was emailed to parents last week: “We are working with the DOE to have a dedicated 1-gigabit connection by November 2017. This is 5 times what we have right now and would not be subject to the impact of other schools sharing the connection. We are also working towards giving students limited wireless access during the day while ensuring that instructional needs are met.”
The estimated cost for this school year is $120,000, which is mostly one-time costs for replacing hardware such as the core routing switch, firewall, and supporting cables. There is already $50,000 in the PA budget for Internet-related expenses, so at our Sept. 26 PA meeting we will be voting to approve a $70,000 infusion from our surplus to cover the rest.
It’s a costly undertaking, but one that we believe is absolutely worthwhile. In almost every BxSci class, the Internet is critical to effective instruction. Teachers use it to teach, students use it to learn and collaborate. A school as excellent as Bronx Science needs a fast and reliable Internet connection!
