These days, you can find internet access just about everywhere – from the local coffee shop down the street to a base camp on Mt. Everest. Soon, you’ll be able to add school buses in Kanawha County, West Virginia to that list. Over the course of the next year, more than 150 buses in the school district will be retrofitted with Wi-Fi.
Many students in the rural area have unusually long bus rides, and school administrators hope that if they provide students with internet access on buses, they’ll take the opportunity to complete homework assignments on their rides to and from school. Many parents in the area, however, are not sold on the idea.
Some argue that, rather than using the internet to do homework, students will simply surf the web and browse social media sites instead. Others argue that the $63,000 a year it will take to pay for the Wi-Fi could be better spent elsewhere (on new text books and seat belts for school buses, for instance). “There are schools that need books and heat and all this other stuff, but then they want to spend money to put Wi-Fi on a school bus,” said one concerned parent in an interview with local TV news outlet WSAZ.
Whether or not the idea will work as administrators have planned remains to be seen. What is sure, however, is that we’re likely to see internet access coming to more buses in the near future. Many cities are already offering free Wi-Fi access in their municipal bus fleets. Soon, rather than being a wasted hour in the day, a commute on a bus could provide passengers with new opportunities for productivity and innovation.
Stay tuned for more updates from your premier source for new and used buses – Northwest Bus Sales.
