Kokomo school buses to get WiFi

KOKOMO, Ind. (WISH) - Students attending Kokomo-Center Township Consolidated Schools will soon be able to log onto the Internet while on the school bus.

The school corporation is spending $125,000 to outfit each of its 65 buses with WiFi service.

"The WiFi annually is going to cost about $5K a year  for the support services and that type of thing.  We think it is money well spent.  We think it is good for the children. It expands our classroom. Expands what we can do," said school corporation spokesperson Dave Barnes.

The school district says by 2015 all 2,000 of its high school students will be issued laptops. The process began this year with the freshman class.  Adding WiFi on the buses will give students extra time to focus on classroom or extracurricular activities on line.

"I definitely think I would have gotten more work done if I would have been able to do stuff on the buses especially if you are the first person picked up on the bus route. You usually have quite a bit of downtime before you are able to get to school. You are looking at a good 30 minutes to get work done," said senior Chris Santucci.

The WiFi hardware will be added to the buses over Spring Break. The school corporation is also spending $60,000 on a GPS that will track the buses as they travel their daily routes.

"It allows you to see where the buses are and its in motion.  It also makes us much more efficient.  We can see where the buses on the routes are, what the problems are. Is that child not there when they should be vice versa?  Are we not there when we should be?  If for some reason something happens and we have to take a detour we can notify that parent, your child is going to be 5-10 minutes late," said Barnes.

Barnes says both the GPS and WiFi systems should be operational before the end of the school year.