Returning to in-person school last year, PHS students expected to be freed from the vexations of technology. To their chagrin, however, they were instead met with yet another barrage of Canvas assignments. Worse still, students found that they had to complete many of these assignments while connected to PHS’s extremely slow Wi-Fi network. If there is one thing that PHS students can all agree upon, it is the insufficiency of our school’s Wi-Fi.

A surprisingly large portion of students’ class time is spent waiting for essential websites such as Canvas and Google Docs to load. Many students who take notes on their computers are unable to do so, instead finding themselves frantically refreshing their Google Docs pages as their teachers speed through content. The sluggish pace of the Wi-Fi forces students to leave many of their in-class assignments to complete at home. Thus, these Wi-Fi problems are adding to students’ already copious workload. Even more troubling are the test-taking issues that have emerged. For many Canvas quizzes and assessments, students are expected to provide images of their work, which have to be transferred from phone to computer and then uploaded. Due to slow Wi-Fi, this process can take several minutes, which reduces the amount of time students have to actually complete their assessments. Sometimes, quizzes do not even submit properly. This problem became even more glaringly obvious with NJGPA standardized testing this month, where internet failures caused significant time delays.

Additionally, the high school has insisted that every student complete a CrisisGo COVID-19 screening prior to entering the building, a process that has also been significantly slowed by the lack of effective Wi-Fi. Instead of a seamless process where students can just walk into the building, show their completed form, and head to their first class, some students find themselves waiting for minutes on end just for the app to load. For this reason, the Tower entrance is often so crowded in the morning that it can sometimes be difficult for students there to get to their classes on time.

The Wi-Fi problem is also one of consistency. In certain rooms and hallways, the Wi-Fi works fine. But in others, the internet connection seems to cut out every few seconds. Consequently, some teachers have a significant advantage over others, enjoying a higher level of productivity from students. The dysfunction of school Wi-Fi is an issue of equality, and improving it, even just to the point that it is usable everywhere in the school, should be an issue of utmost importance to the district.

If the district is going to invest millions of dollars into technology and buy students their own computers, the school should at least provide the internet connection necessary for those computers to function. However, the district should not be held solely responsible for this problem: It is also the responsibility of students and staff at PHS to report when the Wi-Fi is struggling. Through the new Incident IQ system which can be accessed through ClassLink, students are able to easily report issues to the tech office. Right now though, students and teachers alike have failed to use this system, with the tech office reporting that they have received close to zero complaints about the Wi-Fi. As long as the tech office is not aware of the severity of the Wi-Fi problem, it will never get fixed. This is a missed opportunity on the part of both the students and staff at PHS.

The lack of effective Wi-Fi has significantly impeded students’ ability to learn at PHS. It is a problem that impacts both students and teachers on a daily basis, making some of the most basic classroom activities and tasks extremely difficult to complete. If students wish to fix this issue, they need to take the initiative and report it through the Incident IQ system. Only then will this problem finally be solved.