Dive Brief:

• Several Iowa school districts have added WiFi to their school buses to give students a leg up on their homework.
• The decision to add mobile wireless routers to buses was informed by the fact that some students have long commutes or late extracurriculars, and are therefore getting home too late to start studying. The WiFi is meant to counter this disadvantage. 
• While Iowa's Carroll Community School District installed routers on six buses used for late night commutes, its other 26 buses do not have WiFi. The decision to add connectivity was based on complaints from parents. 

Dive Insight:

One fear, of course, is that students will use the WiFi and time to peruse sites like Facebook or other non-academic related content. In Greene County Community School District, the school board also decided to add WiFi to buses for kids who participate in after-school activities, but the district also has a number of 1:1 Chromebook deployments featuring content filters. This means that unless the student is bringing their own laptop —​ chances are they aren't, and even if they did, they wouldn't have the WiFi password — their browsing choices are limited by the school.