LIBERTY – School buses are not uncommon in the parking and drive-thru areas connecting Liberty’s high and middle schools.
But Wednesday a bus was parked outside the middle school to help remote learning students who do not a have Internet connection for the at least one day a week in Sullivan County for this type of instruction.
“There are many kids in the county, many households in this county that don’t have stable, reliable Internet service,” said Robert Dufour, the Sullivan BOCES superintendent. “And that’s because they don’t have the infrastructure, or they cannot afford it.”
So BOCES obtained $7,000 through Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther’s office, and a bus from Rolling V was outfitted to help these students with the help of BOCES trade students, including welders.
“In the past couple of months, they have retrofitted the bus, and removed the seats,” he said.
Districts reserve the bus on remote learning days, and it is parked next to a building, tethered to an Internet connection and powered by a generator as a mobile classroom.
“They able to work at the individual workstations in the bus to do their schoolwork and supervised by a teacher or a teaching assistant from the district that reserves the bus,” said Dufour.
