Members erect 20-foot tower to bring Internet to students

With the onset of distance learning and working from home that began last year, seemingly overnight there was an explosion of users on mobile data networks. CSEA members and their colleagues found themselves having to navigate online platforms that they had never seen before to work with students adapting to a virtual learning environment.

In the rural area of Terra Bella, limited internet access clashed with a desperate need for the 832 students of Terra Bella Union Elementary School District (TBUESD) to have distance learning capability. Families in Terra Bella are primarily low income agricultural workers and many struggle to find and pay for internet.

To keep their students learning, Kenneth DeJonge, Information Technology Administrator with Terra Bella Chapter 764, and Alfonso Arteaga, Network Administrator, became a tour de force in getting them online.

“We all have an obligation to our community that none of us take lightly. There was no way that we were going to let our students down in this uncertain time,” said DeJonge.

“In today’s modern age, I believe every student should have the ability to connect to the internet for educational purposes. Hopefully, what we do here today changes the futures for our community for the better.”

The tech team began by distributing 500 hotspots, but the project quickly evolved into building a 20-foot tower on the top of Carl Smith Middle School’s cafeteria. This tower allowed the district to install antennas that beam an internet signal from their network to devices miles away in student’s homes.

“The whole distance learning and pandemic was new for everyone,” Dejonge said. “Everyone was under a lot of stress and I did not want to add to it. If I could help make things run as smooth as possible, that would be one less thing that everyone else would need to worry about in an already worrisome future.”

DeJonge and Arteaga acknowledge that this couldn’t have happened without the leadership and support from their colleagues, including: Nick Garcia, Interim Superintendent (Business Manager at the time); former Computer Technician Assistant Luis Mena; former Superintendent Guadalupe Roman; the TBUESD teachers; the staff; and all their CSEA brothers and sisters.

“I do believe that this big project, especially with LTE service, has brought the community far more into the mix, especially with the other students' involvement in school, and it's all thanks to the internet service that we're providing,” Arteaga said.

DeJonge hopes that the district can continue to provide internet to families in the community who could otherwise not afford it.

“A lot of families had never been able to afford internet and we wanted to make that a possibility,” DeJonge said. “In today’s modern age, I believe every student should have the ability to connect to the internet for educational purposes. Hopefully, what we do here today changes the futures for our community for the better.”