A recent report by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, "Teachers and Technology: Making the Connection," estimates that while 75 percent of public schools in the United States have access to local or wide area networks and other telecommunications and 35 percent have access to the Internet, only 3 percent of instructional rooms (such as classrooms, labs and media centers) are connected to the Internet. Yet, Educational Service Unit #3 (ESU #3) in Omaha, Neb., has defied statistics by providing 19 public school districts in eastern Nebraska with network connectivity and Internet services where one might least expect it--in the classroom.

ESU #3 is an intermediate service agency funded by the state that provides an array of supplementary educational services to K-12 school districts. ESU #3's functions include computing services and technical support. In this role, it links 90 buildings in a wide area network that spans four counties, 54,000 students, 4,000 teachers and several hundred admi nistrators. "The network exists to give K-12 school systems in Nebraska connectivity to one another and the Internet," says Don Ferneding, systems manager at ESU #3. State law funds Internet services in schools statewide, and ESU #3 has been aggressive in making connectivity a reality for 90 percent of the classrooms in its region using dedicated 56-Kbps links, T1 connections and dial-up services.

Networking K-12 Classrooms