Vallecitos School District obtains 100 hot spots

The Vallecitos School District approved a contract with T-Mobile to provide 100 hot spots for students who need wireless internet connections for distance learning.

The school board’s 4-0 vote Tuesday, Sept. 8, with Sally Forester unable to participate in the meeting, actually approved two contracts. A grant gave the school district three months of free service for 75 hot spots and one contract funds those hot spots for 12 months. The other contract adds 25 hot spots for the 12-month period.

“We’re excited that we're going to provide this to all of our students who need them,” Maritza Koeppen, superintendent of the Vallecitos School District and principal of Vallecitos Elementary School, said.

A grant program to small schools provided Vallecitos with 75 hot spots for the three-month duration.

“It’s working out great, but sometimes we have some issues,” Koeppen said.

Some of the issues involved synchronization between the school district’s end and the students’ end. Another issue was that 75 hot spots turned out not to fulfill the entire needs of the student population.

“They all went very quickly,” Koeppen said.

That need led to the decision to obtain 25 additional hot spots.

“We ended up looking at the data,” Koeppen said.

The school district will pay T-Mobile $20 per month per hot spot, including the three months of free service the total expected expense will be $19,500.

Joe Naiman can be reached by email at [email protected].