Access to high-speed internet has long been restricted for college students in rural Arizona, but the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the issue to the fore and increased the urgency to address it. A group of education leaders have come together to do just that.
The effort, titled “Final Mile Project,” would provide rural Arizona students with reliable, high-speed Internet access by extending existing broadband capabilities in schools and libraries to student homes.
“Our # 1 guiding principle in this area is to provide internet justice for rural students. We all know that everyone in education knows that inequalities that appear early in a student’s life will follow that child for the rest of their lives,” said Wes Brownfield with the Arizona Rural Schools Association, one of the groups behind the project, along with the Arizona Business and Education Coalition and the Arizona Association of County School Superintendents.
The project was recently awarded $ 1.5 million by the Arizona Department of Education to get it off the ground.
The project begins with 200 families from six rural school districts: Beaver Creek School District in Yavapai County, Hackberry School District in Mohave County, Paloma Elementary School District in Maricopa County, Holbrook Unified School District in Navajo County, and Pomoren School District in Cochise County and Chevelon Butte in Coconino County.
The President of the Paloma Superintendent and Rural Schools Association, Kristin Turner, looks forward to the opportunities this project will open for the community in her district.
“We have many families who do not have access to resources that could improve their lives just because of a lack of connectivity. I hope this benefits not only everyone but everyone in their home,” she said.
Brownfield estimates that the families with whom the project begins will have reliable internet service by the beginning of the next school year, and he hopes the project’s work will not end there.
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