The Lambton-Kent District School Board is sending out workbooks to some homes in an effort to continue distance learning in an area where internet is poor.
The board has sent out over 2,200 devices to homes to help with at-home learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. But for some families, the devices are next to useless.
“It is a real situation,” director of education John Howitt told members of the school board April 14.
“There are lots of our students that do not have better than a 3G connection on their phones, or have a dial-up connection. Those speeds do not allow for some of the activities that we’re asking students to do, and that’s a real legitimate issue.”
For the many households where the required internet speeds are not currently an option, the district has come up with a series of learning booklets for both elementary and secondary students.  
“Our senior admin team and their departments came up with paper booklets that other boards are now beginning to use. They are being developed 10 days at a time, and being shared out to homes who were not able to connect with the internet.”
Dawn-Euphemia Councillor Leslea Williams says she’s heard from a number of families who are going without telephone and internet service for hours at a time because the demand is taxing the system.
And she says some families are facing costly overage charges to their current data plans because so many people in the house need the internet for work and school.
Township administrators are also having problems. Clerk Administrator Donna Clermont says there are times the internet speed struggles to hit 1G.
The township is looking at a partnership to bring fiber optics to Dawn-Euphemia, but it hasn’t been completed yet.

• with files from Alex Kurial, Local Journalism Initiative