More than two-thirds of districts are very confident in their networks’ ability to support a digital device for every student, and nearly a quarter of districts now average two devices for each student, finds the latest annual report of the Consortium for School Networking, a professional association for K-12 technology leaders.
However, just 12 percent of school districts have a full-time staff person dedicated to network security—a big concern in an era of rising cyberattacks from outside hackers and even schools’ own students.
Ninety-two percent of districts reported meeting the Federal Communications Commission’s minimum connectivity target of 100 megabits per second, per student, and 35 percent of districts said they meet the long-term target of 1 Gigabit per second, per student. Three in 4 districts now report paying less than $5 per mbps for bandwidth, a major drop in cost compared with years past.