New Wi-Fi policy negtively affects student body

Elijah Nichols, Reporter

With a new year of school beginning, new changes came to the United School District 233’s Wi-Fi policy. According to the district, “student use of technologies, both personally-owned and district-owned, while on district property or at school-related activities is a privilege and afforded for the educational benefit of each student.” The new change in policy upset many students. Senior, Trever Holstein said; “I have not been able to do as much, and I could not do my work” because of the first couple weeks on the new Wi-Fi system.  

Senior, David Summers said because of the latest Wi-Fi change “the first few weeks of school, I could not connect to it, so I was behind in my school.”

 If the Wi-Fi affects the students negatively, so their grades suffer due to its slowness or impracticability of the Wi-Fi, then the district should look into adjusting or going back to how the Wi-Fi was set up last year. Although some students feel that the issue is not with the Wi-Fi but with how the Wi-Fi is being controlled. 

Junior, Brandyn Anderson. said that the Wi-Fi “had not changed much and the guest is just as good, but they should not take it away again” because the loss of Wi-Fi or the hyper control of Wi-Fi is unneeded for high school students.

 Another student added that “it is dumb because it makes everything difficult” dealing with restrictions to websites and “it just makes everything slow” with all of the limitations added. 

Senior, Emily Hull added that the new Wi-Fi is “annoying; I can’t listen to music unless it is downloaded.” All of these problems could be solved if the Wi-Fi was brought back to how it was last year. Last year there were a lot fewer issues due to Wi-Fi restrictions.

The district’ response, via the student manual, is that “in accordance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act, Olathe Public Schools educates staff and students regarding appropriate online behavior to assist with ensuring Internet safety. This includes the use of email and Web 2.0 resources. The district has deployed filtering technologies and protection measures to restrict access to inappropriate content such as those that are illegal, harmful, or contain potentially offensive content.”

 However, are all of the restrictions needed for high school students? If a student wants to access the internet and do illegal things, then they will. So why does the district have to punish all of the student body?

A substitute for the district added; “I haven’t seen many problems in the high school with students on their phones, the middle school is a different story, but when highschoolers are testing or told not to use them they are typically good at following instructions.”

High school students do not need to be treated as if they are in elementary school with all of the restrictions and all of the blockage that at times, hinders one’s educational journey. High school students should be allowed to have free access to Wi-Fi without the overly protective policies