School district highlights importance of E-Rate program during meeting with Murkowski, FCC commissioner

Kenai Peninsula Borough School District administration and IT staff last week showcased the way local schools have benefited from the federal E-Rate program, which provides funding for expansion and development of network infrastructure, in a meeting in Soldotna with U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Commissioner Olivia Trusty of the Federal Communications Commission.

While the visiting dignitaries lunched on sandwiches from Odie’s Deli, Eric Soderquist, KPBSD director of information services, spoke on the unique challenges the local school district faces because of its large geographic footprint and how the district has used E-Rate funding to develop and enhance network connectivity from hubs in Soldotna and Kenai to farther removed communities in Tyonek, Nanwalek and others.

KPBSD Superintendent Clayton Holland told Trusty that the KPBSD is “Alaska in a microcosm.” The KPBSD has schools on the road system, schools only reached by plane, even a school mostly reached by four-wheeler. The district’s 42 schools also represent a diverse array of cultures and styles. Internet access, he said, levels the playing field by allowing students from small or remote communities to reach some of the same classes and opportunities as their peers.

The district is a qualifying rural district, and for every dollar it spends on “eligible equipment,” Soderquist said, they receive a $0.70 reimbursement through the E-Rate program, which is part of the Universal Service Fund administered under the direction of the FCC. Since 1998, when the KPBSD was among the first applicants for E-Rate, the district has received nearly $16 million in E-Rate supports.

That support is significant, especially against a backdrop of continued uncertainty in state education funding. Without E-Rate, “I can’t imagine doing what we’ve done,” Holland said. Another benefit of the program, he said, is that it’s stable and predictable.

Every one of the district’s schools are connected, Soderquist said, in one way or another. The district uses a “hub and spoke” model where server hubs are stored in Soldotna, Homer and Seward and connect out to all the disparate schools. The district uses fiber optic cable where possible, but also relies on microwave and fixed wireless technology.

Fiber optic is “the gold standard,” Soderquist said, as a direct wired connection. The district has worked in “a very concerted push” to purchase and support expansion of the infrastructure to the point where today the majority of KPBSD schools “are in one way, shape or form served by fiber optic.”

Communities that can’t currently be served by fiber can be reached by microwave, which requires establishing a direct line of sight to a tower placed on a high vantage point. This means that in communities like Port Graham, diesel has to be shipped to the southern peninsula and carried to a repeater station on top of a mountain to keep a generator running.

Fixed wireless, like Starlink, works for people who are looking to browse the internet or stream video, Soderquist said, but generally doesn’t meet the school district’s needs for uploading as well as downloading data. There are challenges with the recent proliferation of that technology, he said, because people’s individual needs are met but the secondary benefits of fiber infrastructure and the opportunities that it creates are unavailable. That’s only one of the “bottlenecks” the district faces as it works to expand its network.

The school district uses E-Rate funds both to pay for the expansion of networks and to install devices inside schools like the wireless access points that can be seen on the roof of many areas inside KPBSD schools that allow users to access the network. There are nearly 800 of those access points across the district, Soderquist said.

Among the needs for E-Rate, Soderquist said, are more opportunities to fund redundancies for stability and the ability to invest in cybersecurity. Soderquist said the program only allows for purchasing of basic firewall hardware and supports, but the district has to rely on several other pieces of technology to maintain its systems under regular and increasing pressure from cyberattacks.

“The state of cybersecurity has dramatically changed in recent years,” Soderquist said.

The district funds “core foundation hardware” with E-Rate but layers other software on top to aid in detecting new threats or unusual activity. It’s that extra layer of security, Soderquist said, that prevented the KPBSD’s network from being breached last year when many other districts saw personal information accessed by unauthorized users.

“Our firewalls recognized the attack for what it was,” Soderquist said. “One of the very few districts of Alaska and, frankly, across the nation that was able to leverage properly configured firewalls and stop that attack. We’re very proud of that.”

Concerns raised about cybersecurity, Trusty said, are “spot on.” She said as the FCC works to “modernize” E-Rate, there is room to consider schools as a “target rich environment” with significant amounts of personal information worth protecting. She told KPBSD admin to connect with the Congressional Commerce Committee through Murkowski to share their perspective.

For more information about the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, visit kpbsd.org.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.