On Friday, May 20, the Ann Arbor Public Schools District announced that it will no longer supply wireless Internet access for students with privately owned devices. Computers owned by the school will still have Internet access but students with iPods, iPads, and personal laptops will no longer be able to connect to the AAPS public network during school hours.

This decision was made based on a recommendation from the Informational Technology Department in the AAPS and after a variety of complaints from teachers experiencing slow Internet connections. There have always been two networks for the AAPS: a public portal (AAPSPUB) and a private one (AAPSWF) that could only be accessed by school-owned devices. The public portal will be shut down during school hours and will be available after school and evenings.

After a month of investigating, the AAPS concluded that overuse of the public network was affecting the strength of both the public and the private network, which teachers rely heavily upon. The private network was set up so that teachers could have a stable connection separate from the public one which could be made slower as a result of having an unlimited number of users. Craig Levin, math teacher and computer enthusiast at Community High School, is glad this move can make his Internet connection more stable. “My ability to get online when I need to had been compromised. Every time I talked to IT, they told me that the network’s clogged– just too many users on the network,” said Levin.

The district made the decision to change their policy now after an increase in problems reported by teachers and because it came at a critical time. This matter was of great urgency because teachers were having problems entering grades for the third quarter marking period. To solve this problem, the decision to cut off the public network was made and put into effect immediately. There have been problems with slow connections due to students clogging the network with private devices in the past.

Previously, anyone in proximity to a school could access the AAPSPUB network, including outside users not affiliated with the AAPS. “People were using schools like a coffee shop,” said Liz Margolis, head of communications for the AAPS.

In their tracking of the network, the AAPS also noticed that students were using private devices to circumvent the Internet filter and access gaming and blocked sites such as Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter.

But Levin thinks there is a bigger issue at hand. “I think there’s an abuse of electronic devices in general at school. There’s an epidemic of overusing electronic devices whether kids are texting or checking their Facebooks,” said Levin. “I don’t think that shutting down the AAPSPUB is going to solve the problem, it’s not the problem. The problem is teaching kids to use devices responsibly. It all comes with education.”