districts in Michigan's St. Clair County Regional Educational Service Agency and the Eastern Upper Peninsula Intermediate School District to administer a survey to nearly 3,000 students in grades 8-11. The team collected data in spring 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and surveyed the same schools in 2022, near the end of the pandemic.The study found that the number of students who currently have home internet access is lower than it was at the height of the pandemic.
This had a lasting effect: Nearly 44% of the students who initially received a hotspot subsequently replaced the hotspot with another source of home internet access. Of those students who lost home internet access in 2022, 12% were students who previously had a school-provided hotspot, but most lost access either because their household could no longer afford internet, or their parents or guardians lost access for another reason.
In the 2020-21 school year, 55.7% of all students received a laptop/Chromebook from their school; by the 2021-22 school year, when most schools were back to primarily in-person instruction, this number declined to 40.3% of students. "While there are measures in place to reduce broadband access and affordability gaps, infrastructure investment is time-consuming and slow. There will be a transition period during which rural,
"Given the growth of jobs in STEM fields, the higher income associated with STEM careers and the potential benefit of the STEM-related industry for the economic development in rural areas, fostering interest in STEM is key," Hales said., a student with broadband access has, on average, a 0.6 higher GPA overall on a 4.0 scale. For many students, this could be the difference between a B- and B+ grade.At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the 2020-21 school year, 58.