Mar 09, 2022

Val Verde School District Broadband Network Provides Case Study for Closing the Digital Divide

A public-private partnership to provide internet connectivity for residents in the Val Verde Unified School District (USD) serves as a model case study for broadband deployment to hard-to-reach populations.

Val Verde USD, located in Riverside County, Calif., will work with hybrid network provider GeoLinks to establish the first-ever broadband service explicitly for families of the school district, with low-income households receiving the service for free.

“It has long been Val Verde’s vision to not only provide exceptional teaching, curriculum, and technology resources to every single student but to also ensure that students have the opportunity to learn 24/7 using this technology,” said Val Verde USD Superintendent Michael McCormick. “As a result, the district has worked for several years putting in place the foundation of a district-wide broadband network that serves our families.”

Encompassing approximately 58 square miles, Val Verde serves more than 20,000 students across 21 schools. Eighty-four percent of students participate in the National School Lunch Program, 75% are Hispanic, 14% are African American, and 20% are learning English as a second language.

Val Verde prides itself on being a pioneer in school technology. Interestingly, the district was one of the first school districts on the internet in the early 1990s. The district has equipped every student with a laptop to take home, and when Val Verde transitioned to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, analytics showed 95% of students were connecting to the internet. The district used GIS mapping software to identify any students who were not able to connect.

In February 2022, the Val Verde School Board voted to hire GeoLinks to provide three internet options for households in the school district. The first will offer gigabit symmetrical service and the second will offer 200Mbps symmetrical service, both of which will require a technician to install a receiver at the residence. The third option will offer a WiFi connection of 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up but requires no installation, as it uses wireless mesh technologies. Such an approach is ideal for older multi-tenant housing lacking a contemporary twisted pair ethernet cable or fiber to each residence, or where an installation in every unit is disruptive, cost-prohibitive, or blocked by property owners. Each connectivity option will be supported with multigigabit backhaul capabilities, ensuring reliability through multi-point redundancy via connection to CENIC’s fiber network backbone.

The Val Verde School District will contribute $5 million to fund the first phase of the project, which will pay for the infrastructure and equipment to connect 1,400 low-income families with students in the district to the gigabit service at no cost to the household for five years. During that time, the board and school leadership will have the option to extend the free service for another five years. The district’s funding also enables affordable rates to be offered to all residents in the district who wish to access the internet service options. The gigabit symmetrical service will cost $79/month, the 200Mbps symmetrical service will cost $49/month, and the 100/20Mbps WiFi service will cost $19/month. Plus, each of those fees may be reduced by $30/month if the household qualifies for the Affordable Connectivity Program as anticipated.

Val Verde’s network model has the potential to be scaled and replicated in other parts of the state, ensuring broadband access for all households, especially in low-income and rural areas.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Val Verde School District on such an exciting and innovative project,” said GeoLinks’ Chief Strategy Officer Phillip Deneef. “The infrastructure and service that GeoLinks will bring to the district and the surrounding community will have a generational impact on these students and will serve as a model for other public-private partnerships seeking to close the digital divide for good.”

GeoLinks was the largest special construction grant winner for California K-12 schools and libraries from 2016- 2018 and 2020. In 2017 alone, GeoLinks expanded its customer base to include nearly 30 rural school districts and surrounding communities throughout the state that previously had not had access to any high-speed broadband service. CENIC has worked with GeoLinks since 2015 and has over 50 completed projects, as well as several in the process of deployment.

Val Verde USD leadership is in discussions with CENIC, the Riverside County Office of Education, and federal organizations on using this project as a case study to access Learning Loss Mitigation Funds and broadband improvement funds. In addition, Val Verde recently became a member of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB), which is one of the leading national champions for open, affordable broadband for community anchor institutions.

“The Val Verde network is an exemplar project that could scale to dozens, if not hundreds, of school districts and California Community Colleges,” said CENIC President and CEO Louis Fox. “We are proud that CENIC could be a small part of this important effort.”

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