COLUMBIA, S.C. — Richland One School District is providing WiFi access for all of their students who need it.
They stationed nine WiFi enabled school buses at different locations across the district Thursday to provide hot spots for students while out of school.
District Superintendent Dr. Craig Witherspoon says in this day and age, devices are useless without WiFi, "What we’re doing now is placing those buses in a variety of sites so that students and parents can go and still have internet access while they’re home- its great to have devices, but as we see, some of our families do not have internet access and that kind of limits them to some of those online tools. So this is going to attempt to kind of level that playing field.”
Students and parents can park within 200-250 ft. of the bus and access the free WiFi from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“You know the more people you have, of course, its like an access point, it might slow down the signal a little bit. But we will kind of gauge how many people show up," Dr. Witherspoon says, "we already have some other sites that we’re considering.”
The buses will be parked prominently at each location for you to park your car near. Parents and students will not be allowed inside the bus.
“Everybody please take care and, again, where we can provide assistance and resources during this time, we will certainly take every action to do that," Dr. Witherspoon assures.
The current bus locations are:
Annie Burnside Elementary School
7300 Patterson Road
Columbia, SC 29209
Burton-Pack Elementary School
111 Garden Drive
Columbia, SC 29204
Gadsden Elementary School
1660 S. Goodwin Circle
Gadsden, SC 29052
W.S. Sandel Elementary School
2700 Seminole Road
Columbia, SC 29210
Edward E. Taylor Elementary School
200 McRae Street
Columbia, SC 29203
Watkins-Nance Elementary School
2525 Barhamville Road
Columbia, SC 29204
Webber Elementary School
140 Webber School Road
Eastover, SC 29044
Columbia High School
1701 Westchester Drive
Columbia, SC 29210
Lewis Scott Court Apartments
238 Lewis Scott Court
Eastover, SC 29044