Imagine a child riding the bus for a half hour to school, then getting off the bus only to get on another one for a 40-minute ride to the Career and Technical Education Center. This is the reality for many CTE centers serving small schools in large geographic areas.

For example, in the 2,000 square mile territory of West Shore Educational Service District in Ludington, Michigan, eight local school districts, with a total population of 8,000 students, spend a lot of time on buses just getting to and from school.

“Offering high-cost, high-tech CTE classes in local districts is not economically efficient due to the small student populations and the significant distances between districts,” said Randy Howes, Superintendent of the West Shore ESD. “There simply aren’t enough students in any of our local districts to support high-cost, local CTE programming.”

Because of this reality, the only practical way of facilitating CTE course access to students, is to transport the students to where the classes are offered.

The problem? Students spend lot of time on the bus.

Since moving the CTE classes closer to students isn’t an option, West Shore ESD is working to make it possible for learning to start as soon as the kids get on the bus.

“The goal is to turn transportation time into learning time,” Howes said. “By allowing students access to the internet on the bus, they can work on classwork while traveling.”

West Shore ESD recently offered their local districts no-cost Wi-Fi access on one of their school buses that transports students to and from the CTE Center. A collaborative partnership between the West Shore ESD and the West Shore Community College provides area districts with the opportunity to transport students to a community college campus where, in one location, they can access CTE classes, dual enrollment and college classes.

“As online learning and online access become a greater part of the educational world,” says Howes, “offering Wi-Fi on buses may allow schools to turn the travel time to the CTE center, which was once a necessary disadvantage, into learning time.”

West Shore ESD will monitor the use of the Internet access and survey students near the end of this school year to further assess the success of the program.