North Clackamas School District’s four middle schools were piloting mobile hotspots from Mobile Citizen when they discovered the benefits of mobile broadband went beyond what they had originally envisioned. They knew their increasingly mobile staff needed fast, convenient internet connectivity to support their Chromebook checkout system. However, they quickly learned that it would also become a valuable tool in their emergency response system.
When the district experienced multiple weather-related power outages, many of their schools found themselves without phones or internet access. “The outages occurred during a critical dismissal time at the elementary level,” said the District’s Executive Director of Technology and Information Services Tricia George. “We were able to distribute the mobile hotspots to the school offices, which gave them the ability to send out email correspondence to their families about transportation and dismissal plans.”
In addition to these 4 middle schools, North Clackamas School District has 17 elementary and four high schools where approximately 2,000 staff members serve 17,250 students. Ultimately they hope to extend their device checkout system to the entire K-12 system to support families who do not have internet access in their homes.