Bridging the Digital Divide

The digital divide, the gulf between those with access to reliable high-speed internet and those without, disproportionately affects rural communities and schools, making it challenging for rural schools to compete with their big-city neighbors.

According to faculty and staff at Godley, Graford and Alvarado independent school districts (ISD), fast, reliable internet is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity for the functioning of today’s modern classrooms.  

United Cooperative Services has worked to level the playing field with these school districts and bridge that digital divide, each in its own way.

Pleasant View Elementary School, Godley ISD  

Robots and drones have invaded the classroom at Pleasant View Elementary, and the students are happy about it, said STEM teacher Kristen Jenkins. In fact, she says that’s what the kids want to do with free time in class—get on the internet and play with the robots and drones.

On the rolling plains of Johnson County, halfway between Godley and Joshua, a new housing development called Silo Mills has just begun to take shape. A few streets have finished houses on them, but most of the land surrounding Pleasant View Elementary is empty, waiting for the building to begin. The unfinished subdivision hints at what it will become one day, a bustling neighborhood full of people and modern new homes.

Sitting in this emptiness is a modern, totally connected, brand-new school, far away from Godley ISD’s other campuses. It’s so far away that Marty Oliver, Godley’s chief technology officer, was concerned that he might be unable to connect them with high-speed internet.

“All of our other campuses are right next to each other or all within a mile, and we had fiber that was installed between them probably 20 years ago,” Oliver said. “When they told us we were going to build an elementary eight miles away from everything else, I was at a loss. I really didn’t know where to go or what to do with it. That’s when United came in and proposed setting up fiber for us to connect it back to us; and it’s been super seamless. It was a project that we really didn’t have to think about. United stepped in, got the fiber in place, and brought us to a level that functions just like it’s a part of our core campuses. So, it solved a problem that was massive for us with ease.”

Graford ISD, Truly Bridging the Digital Divide

By contrast, Graford ISD in northern Palo Pinto County at the western edge of United’s service territory, lacked reliable high-speed internet altogether for as long as they have existed. A truly rural ISD has its advantages, but a reliable internet connectivity option often isn’t one of them.

Starting in January 2024, United began providing reliable high-speed internet to the school for the first time in the district’s history. Prior to United establishing service, the district, which consists of only one school serving just 330 students from pre-K through 12th grade, relied on wireless internet.

“Before United, we had point-to-point internet with another provider,” said Monica Shrew, director of technology at Graford ISD. “Internet connectivity was slow, and some of the basic educational tasks that we needed, we could not do with that provider.

Now that we have United, we no longer have to worry about our students being unable to connect; now, all our students can be online simultaneously.”

On the classroom level, more reliable internet has made a huge difference in 2nd grade math teacher Amber Clark’s day-to-day functioning. She uses the internet daily with her students, she said, assessing their progress on state-required benchmarks, and she is happy that her internet connection is stable and dependable.  

“It was difficult to have lessons because I feel like we spent more time trying to get a connection to go instead of just being able to immediately have students pull up their computer and do what they needed to do,” Clark said. “Now it’s amazing. All of our kids can be on their laptops at the same time. I can actually be on my tv working when I need to pull up my lessons or my math books. Everything is accessible, and it’s fast. I don’t have to sit there and waste most of my lesson time trying to get it to work. That has been really nice.”

For Alvarado ISD, It was a Question of Service

Alvarado sits at the intersection of U.S. Highway 67 and Interstate 35W in northern Johnson County. Many of the main campuses for Alvarado ISD sit near this intersection, right in the town of Alvarado itself. Far to the northeast, some 11 miles from the district’s headquarters, sits Lillian Elementary School. All by itself, the school serves pre-K to 2nd grade and has more than 300 students and 56 staff members.

That distance posed challenges for Lillian Elementary, according to Julie Holland, chief technology officer for Alvarado ISD. Holland says that they did not have many options for service providers that far away from the district’s headquarters in Alvarado.

“Our previous provider service was ‘fine’ until it just wasn’t,” Holland said. “The first time we came up with a rather complex issue, their response was almost non-existent. It really eroded our trust in them as a provider. United has definitely made things easier.”

Tonya Kelley has been the principal of Lillian Elementary School for four years. Before that, she was a vice principal and classroom teacher and has seen a lot of change during those years regarding technology and teaching. Today, she says almost every aspect of education requires a reliable connection to the internet.

“When I first started teaching, everything was paper and pencil,” Kelley said. “We do all of our assessments now, almost all of them are computerized. There are no longer pencil and paper state testing so we are giving our students what they need to be successful on those state tests, and it starts in our earliest classes.”

The Cooperative History and Principles

United’s geographic service area spans from Ellis County in the east to Possum Kingdom and beyond in the west. To date, United has installed more than 7,000 miles of high-speed internet fiber cable to its ever-expanding network and has more than 25,000 active internet subscribers with more being added daily.

United CEO Cameron Smallwood said that providing high-speed internet to rural areas fits in with United’s legacy and history of service.

“The rural electric cooperatives were started to service areas that couldn’t get electricity back in the 1930s,” he said. “Much like then with electricity, we are committed to extending high-speed internet out to our members in rural areas. That community spirit is still alive today with United’s push for rural internet, especially when it comes to getting internet into schools.”

United adheres to the Seven Cooperative Principles, the seventh being “concern for community,” which states, “Cooperatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies supported by the membership.” The fifth principle is about “education, training and information” and states, “Education and training for members . . . help them effectively contribute to the development of their cooperatives.”

Jeff Pannell, United’s vice president of business & community development, said the seventh and fifth core principles are part of the reason why United has longstanding relationships with the numerous school districts within its 14-county service territory.

“In a nutshell, the seven cooperative principles are what guides us,” Pannell said. “We have a responsibility to meet the schools’ needs and in this case, it was to equip them with high-speed internet. In addition to the seventh principle, the fifth principle is ‘education, training and information,’ so the fact that United is able to provide affordable, high-speed internet to those districts in need should be something we are all proud to be a part of.”