She punched numbers into her Chromebook, a notebook-style laptop, and pulled out the right answers.
All 830 seventh- and eighth-graders at the school have Chromebooks provided through a grant the district received. Chromebooks are designed to rely on remote servers - the cloud - to handle more tasks than traditional laptops that have more internal programs and processing power. Students use the Chromebooks in every part of their education, from doing class assignments to taking statewide achievement tests.
That means they depend heavily on Kuna Middle School's broadband Internet service. The school might not have such service today if not for the state's decision to wire high schools with fast Internet connectivity beginning in 2009. Though Kuna had already connected the middle and elementary schools with Kuna High School by then, the high school program expanded the connections and helped Kuna extend them throughout the district, said Deb McGrath, Kuna Middle School principal.
But there's a problem: The state's work connecting the high school may have been done illegally.
In November, District Judge Patrick Owen ruled that the state's $60 million broadband contract is illegal, because it stripped Boise's Syringa Networks of work that was part of the contract. The state gave all the technical work to Qwest (now Century Link), another company working on the project, a month after the state awarded the contract in 2009.
The ruling could mean the state will have to repay the federal government $15 million that helped cover the cost of broadband. Since 2013, the federal government has not put any more money into Idaho because of the legal dispute. The Legislature stepped in this year, approving $11.4 million to keep broadband services going through February.
Gov. Butch Otter and outgoing state school superintendent Tom Luna have voiced their support for continued broadband in high schools. The state has asked Owen to reconsider and clarify his ruling. Attorneys say the continued existence of the Idaho Education Network, which provides the broadband service, depends on whether the original contract is declared valid.
"I can't imagine a school without computers," Rhiannon said.
Otter and Luna have noted that the broadband service has increased the number of dual credit classes students take and schools' ability to pair teachers in one location with students in another to provide instruction. But broadband use has become far more pervasive in Idaho schools than that.
In Kuna, science teachers use broadband so students can do virtual dissection of frogs, McGrath said.
Students in Candice Grover's seventh- and eighth-grade language arts classes in Melba School District all have computers and use them to do research for papers. She no longer accepts out-of-date data from students, because the computers give them the tool to get the latest information. "If this is scratched, it would be disastrous," Grover said.
While no one wants to think the service could go dark, school administrators in many districts are nervous that the service they have come to rely on could change.
Melba Superintendent Andy Grover, who is Candice Grover's husband, said legislators he talks to are cautious. They tell him "we are going to take care of the issue," Grover said, "But no one is saying, 'This is how it will work.' "
Before the state offered broadband, Melba bought enough Internet services to run about 300 computers at $225 a month, Andy Grover said. Melba now has enough bandwidth to run 800 computers in its district of just over 800 students.
Kuna would have to pay about $23,000 to cover what its gets from the state, McGrath said. "That's a huge hit," she said.
Large districts aren't so dependent on the state support. The Boise School District, for example, says it doesn't rely solely on the state-provided broadband in its schools.
"We have always hedged our bets," said David Roberts, Boise's technology administrator. More than 60 percent of the district's broadband services comes from a contract with TW Telecom, a part of Time-Warner, Roberts said. The district is about to ask for bids for a new contract that would allow it to buy increased amounts of broadband on its own if something happens to the state's service.
The Idaho Education Network allows for innovative sharing among small Idaho districts.
Weiser School District, for example, beams a dual credit, real-time speech class, a graduation requirement, 264 miles to the east to Murtaugh, which has 60 students in its high school. Murtaugh has had trouble hiring its own speech teacher. "I am able to get that from Weiser," said Michele Capps, superintendent of the 280-student district.
Next semester, Weiser will link with Melba district to offer a class in Holocaust Literatures via computer in real time. Students in Melba will be able to see and interact with the teacher in Weiser. And Melba, in turn, is sending some of its health-occupation instruction to a pair of charter schools in Idaho in real time.
For some students, broadband is bringing previously unavailable peeks into vocations they might pursue.
Jennifer Reyes, 16, is taking computer-based instruction at Melba High School in culinary arts and fashion and interior design. "I would like to do a bake shop," Reyes said. "Culinary arts is about how to open a restaurant and the food."
If she couldn't get that instruction at Melba, she said, she would probably have to go to a college to get it. "I think it would be harder," she said.
Being able to use the Internet for learning at school, she said, "gives you lots of ideas."
©2014 The Idaho Statesman (Boise, Idaho)
