DCSD Superintendent Mark Lane shares school district's successes and struggles with Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer during a virtual round table Tuesday

Decorah School District Superintendent Mark Lane presented both victories and ongoing challenges of internet accessibility at a virtual round table discussion hosted by Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer Tuesday morning.

Lane and Finkenauer were joined by Majority Whip James Clyburn from South Carolina, who is the Chairman of the House Democratic Rural Broadband Task Force, and also by La Motte (Iowa) and Andrew Telephone Company general manager JoAnne Gregorich.

The discussion focused on four main areas: the needs and challenges concerning high-speed broadband internet access in rural places; covering distance learning efforts in Iowa's schools; the challenges facing rural broadband deployment; and the efforts by the House Task Force on Rural Broadband to close the digital divide in rural places.

Lane introduced Decorah to the panel as a scenic part of the Driftless Region with areas untouched by glaciers.  The beautiful landscape, unfortunately, is cause for unique challenges when it comes to internet equality for the community. He first highlighted the district commitment to accessibility by giving details about the extended outdoor WiFi installed after the COVID-19 pandemic forced online learning. In addition, Lane praised the district's one-to-one device program, which allowed all students to be able to continue their learning at home.
 
Even with these successes, Lane acknowledged there is still work to be done with the accessibility of high quality, reliable internet for the district. He went on to share feedback from staff and students about this topic. Lane told a story that compared two teachers' locations.  One teacher had quality internet coverage because of the home's location on top of a hill.  The other teacher, who lives less than a mile away but in a valley, had unreliable access if any at all.  Another story shared details of a staff member who had to wait until a certain time period to upload videos for her students to insure her internet could handle the load.  That time period was between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.  Finally, Lane chuckled as he shared a story about one staff member who claimed to have internet interference because of good tall corn crop.

Back to a serious tone, Lane said, "It can't be an access problem that keeps a student from learning or a teacher from teaching."

Finkenauer and Clyburn are working together to push H.R.7022 which will direct the Federal Communications Commission to take certain actions to accelerate the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction. In short, this bill would allot funds for places like Decorah to develop a plan for accessible, reliable, high-quality internet. This is such an important topic to Clyburn that he often retells a farmer's quote from the early 1940's: "The greatest thing on Earth is to have the love of God in your heart. And the next greatest thing is to have electricity in your house."

Finkenauer closed the meeting, saying, "There's plenty of work to keep doing, and we're committed to doing that in Congress. We can't afford to move backwards. These stories will be used to work with colleagues to move things forward. We must bridge the inequities of digital connectivity."