Question of the Week

Question of the week

From the monthly PTO Presidents Breakfast:

I have children at Scottsville and Walton. In the last year, communication has been cut 3 times. Is having a satellite service like Starlink an option for these schools that do not have good cell service as a back-up?

Our Technology Department has been investigating options like Starlink and other fiber providers to improve communication in areas like Scottsville that don’t have reliable cell service. Starlink could provide some basic backup for school communications, but it only offers a partial solution.

Using Starlink or a new fiber provider would require significant costs and changes to our network setup, so we must decide which schools could use it as a backup. However, even with Starlink, there’s no guarantee that we’d have a connection in every type of outage.

As a short-term solution, it is good to know that our recent ACPS-issued cell phone upgrade for our school administrators includes satellite connection capabilities. These new phones can help keep communication open when regular internet or cell service isn’t available.

Answer from Superintendent Dr. Haas

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