Equity of Access: All North Carolina K-12 School Districts Now Connected to Education Backbone

As part of the School Connectivity Initiative (SCI), led by North Carolina State University’s Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, all 115 North Carolina school districts are now linked with high-speed access to online content and services through the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN).

NCREN is a high-speed broadband network that connects all public and most private colleges and universities, as well as select community colleges in the state, via a highly reliable infrastructure that provides an excellent platform for teaching, learning and innovation. With the addition of all K-12 school districts within the state, NCREN serves as the education backbone linking students and teachers across North Carolina’s K-20 education community to each other and to instructional content and resources.

“This education backbone provides a solid foundation for transformational programs and services that will deliver instructional content in a smarter way for the 21st century,” says Phil Emer, director of technology at the Friday Institute and SCI director.

SCI was recommended by the Business Education Technology Alliance, chaired by then Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, and was created in coordination with partners from the e-NC Authority, N.C. Department of Public Instruction, N.C. Information and Technology Services and MCNC. The Friday Institute provided project management including planning, design, deployment and policy input.

To make statewide connectivity affordable, SCI established an e-rate service center that supports local school districts in navigating the federal bureaucracy surrounding the federal e-rate discount program. The program refunds up to 90 percent of fees associated with connecting K-12 schools to the Internet and other services.

SCI also created a network engineering service center to support districts at the local level by assisting with troubleshooting, network set-up and optimization. The center provides experts to all school districts as needed, complementing the district technical staff and helping to ensure consistent high quality network access across all districts.

“It is clear that access to opportunity is really about access to educational content – and connectivity is instrumental in making that happen,” Emer says. “SCI is the first step towards the 21st century classroom, and developing a North Carolina workforce poised to meet the challenges of a global economy.

“There is great content already available through programs such as Learn and Earn Online and the NC Virtual Public School,” Emer continues. “Now that all public school systems in the state are able to access this great educational content, it will begin the transformation that is necessary to bridge where our schools are to where they need to be – in the 21st century.”

– barnhill –