The Highland School District received not one, but two grants from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation. In addition to a grant to help replace lights, the school received a grant during the recent spring grant cycle to improve wireless communications. Superintendent Chris Armstrong said the WCRF awarded a grant of $15,000 towards their $40,000 project. At the moment, the two elementary schools in the Highland district are connected to the high school’s ICN internet through Windstream, which costs them $400 a month per building. With the ability to directly connect wirelessly from the high school to the elementary schools with their own equipment, the district will save roughly $10,000 a year.

The schools currently operate under a bandwidth of 20 gigabytes, and the new connectivity will increase it to close to 100 gigabytes. This dramatic increase will allow the elementary schools to utilize online testing they haven’t been able to use with their current bandwidth restrictions.