Official says poor access to internet key obstacle

Study says download speeds in Santa Fe lag behind other districts around nation

When it comes to internet connectivity for students learning remotely in Santa Fe Public Schools, Tom Ryan compared it to driving on Interstate 25.

Sometimes connectivity moves smoothly — but not all students’ connections are running at the same speed, said Ryan, the district’s chief information and strategy officer, during a presentation to the school board Thursday.

Once there is congestion, he said, videos and learning platforms come to a standstill.

The district is participating in a study with the Consortium for School Networking that received funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Ryan said the information collected is being used to help inform the Federal Communications Commission on its E-Rate program, which provides aid to help schools and libraries obtain affordable telecommunications and internet access.

Multiple factors are at play when it comes to connectivity issues for remote students, Ryan said, from the devices they use to the processing speeds in each device, the internet service provider and the type of connection they use to log into learning platforms.

The number of people accessing a network also can have a major impact, slowing speeds.

Ultimately, Ryan said, the biggest issue affecting online students in the district — and students across New Mexico — is out of their control. Internet companies focus their attention and bandwidth on more densely populated regions of the country, leaving residents in less-populated areas fighting over limited internet access, he said.

A national study of internet speeds showed the average download and upload speeds available to students in Santa Fe was at or near the bottom. The 83,047 kilobits-per-second download

the slowest among 11 districts in the study, compared to 187,507 kbps for students in the Dallas Independent School District.

“We sit in an area of the country that just does not get good internet connectivity,” Ryan said. “There is just not enough internet available, and some of it has to be the density of the population that we’re serving.”

He said the study could help shape policy in the future.

District Superintendent Veronica García said the study underscores the challenges of remote learning.

“When people say, ‘Oh, it was a lost year; we didn’t really meet their needs,’ we have to be very careful because we are not making apples-to-apples comparisons,” she said.

School board President Kate Noble said internet connectivity might need to be viewed as a necessary utility, much like water and electricity.

“It’s a little bit sobering, but really good information,” she said.