Some students at South Hills High School say Wi-Fi connection issues are making it difficult to complete assignments on both personal and school-issued devices, raising concerns about completing school assignments and accessing online resources. Despite these complaints, school officials say that the network is healthy and up to date.
Rosalind Averion (9) has expressed her thoughts on the Wi-Fi connection at South Hills High School.
“Wi-Fi connection is an issue on my school device when I’m in all parts of the campus, I think it’s slow because everyone is running on it. When I exit off school campus my phone connection is also very bad until I get out of the South Hills area. When I need my phone for school assignments I have to wait until I get home to do any work,” Averion said.
Despite these issues expressed, Matt Chiappone, the director of tech support at C-VUSD, is certain the school’s Wi-Fi has enough bandwidth capacity for students’ everyday needs.
“When used appropriately, the school’s bandwidth is adequate,” Chiappone said.
Principal Terry Abernathy explained how the real issue with Wi-Fi lies in how students are allowed to access it. According to the SHHS Student Handbook, students may only use electronic communication devices for instructional use, not personal use.
“The Wi-Fi actually is really healthy and up to date. But the issue is that students are not allowed access on their personal devices [for personal use].“ And to answer that would be strictly privacy and protections, and the more devices on a network is the greater chance of infiltration of viruses, ransom,” Abernathy said.
Students understand the restrictions on the use of personal devices, but feel like there should be some improvement in the issue. Frankenstein Gámez (12) has been a South Hills student for four years and has expressed this struggle.
“I do believe the [cell phone] policy is fair because people can do bad things with it but at the same time I don’t think it works because of how slow connection works, even on a school computer. I feel it’s slow because everyone is running it at the same time,” Gámez said.
South Hills teachers may also be affected by the Wi-Fi connection. Erin Greer, teacher at SHHS, shared her perspective on how the school’s internet connection impacts students.
“I say about 25% of the time, there will be at least one to ten students during the week who have trouble accessing information through the internet, 75% of the time, the issue is on their personal device, 25% of the time, it’ll be on the school’s Chromebook,” Greer said.
Despite these issues, South Hills High School plans on placing a new Wi-Fi antenna with Verizon that should give personal devices better access.
“Let them know, hey, Verizon’s coming. Antena is coming, and it’s gonna benefit all the neighborhood, all the community,” Abernathy said.
