Small Kansas Town and Google Partner for Wi-Fi on School Buses

On Sept 20, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and other dignitaries came to Council Grove (KS), population 2,079, to celebrate a budding program to equip rural school transportation with Wi-Fi service. They call it “Rolling Study Hall” and the kids love it because they can do their Web-based assignments on the long trip to and from school. The Wi-Fi equipped buses were made possible by a partnership between the Morris County school system, the national Consortium for School Networking and Google, said Superintendent Aron Dody. The Wi-Fi equipped buses carry 165 students daily, providing them with 4G mobile service on the road. So how does the school keep the students on task, working on their homework instead of watching Taylor Swift videos or playing Fortnight? “We have filters so they’re limited on what they can do,” Dody explained. “They can’t get on Facebook, they can’t stream certain YouTube-type videos that aren’t educational.”