Broadband Infrastructure Improvement Grants California public K–12 schools began connecting to the Internet through CENIC in 2001. By 2014, most K–12 school sites in California were connected to CalREN, but some schools were unable to connect due to financial and geographic constraints. In recognition of these constraints, the State of California allocated funding for Broadband Infrastructure Improvement Grants (BIIG). Through public-private partnerships, CENIC has established broadband connectivity for hundreds of schools in historically underserved areas. CalREN now provides broadband connectivity to 100% of county offices of education, 85% of school districts (897), 80% of schools (8,594), and 5.1 million students. More than half of these K–12 schools are connected at speeds of 1 gigabit or higher. On May 7, 2019, California set a record when 683,673 students simultaneously took the online Smarter Balanced state tests. Before connecting to CalREN, some schools had to limit the number of students testing at the same time and had to spread test dates over the course of a month or more. Other schools were previously unable to perform online testing at all. Equally important, students, teachers, and administrators are now able to take advantage of the increased capacity for day-to-day teaching and learning, as indicated by the doubling of K–12 traffic on CalREN in 2018 (up 117%). CENIC continues to collaborate with the California Department of Education, the California Legislature, the California Public Utility Commission, the K–12 High Speed Network, school sites, and commercial service providers to connect the schools that remain unserved or underserved in California. In the State budget for 2019-20, the Governor’s Office and the Legislature committed $7.5 million directly to CENIC to pilot innovative approaches for provisioning broadband to the hardest-to-reach schools. We are to develop prospective new models for serving these hardest-to-serve constituents, and they will require novel approaches to partnerships across our segments and other communities such as local and county government, health care, tribes, and the private sector. As such, it is an opportunity to break new ground. If we do this well, significant additional funding may follow. No one has cracked this code on the scale we need to in California. We believe we can.
Public Libraries Initiative In 2013, the California State Legislature and Governor charged the California State Librarian to prepare a needs assessment and spending plan to connect local public libraries to a statewide high-speed Internet network. According to the resulting report, which was conducted by CENIC, the state of connectivity in California’s public libraries (nearly 1,200 libraries, in 180 library “jurisdictions”) was dire. Most libraries had slower Internet than is found in most homes and most were overpaying for inadequate service. California subsequently undertook a historic initiative to help all of California’s public libraries receive broadband service through CalREN.
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