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Richland One offers WiFi bus hotspots for students

While students are out of school, Richland One school district wanted to make sure everyone has access to WiFi.

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.

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“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

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