Hello, I hope you are all well and staying healthy. I will try to make this brief. One of the first entities I approached about extending their already existing broadband services are the Bellingham Public Schools. Why? Because they are sitting on an extensive publicly-owned fiber optic network and could easily extend services to the public via our 22 school buildings and they claim to care about equity and justice and addressing the Digital Divide would align with their mission. While the schools have started some, limited-hour, indoor internet cafes, and are paying for some low performance big telecom low-income connections, this is a far cry from adequate access and does nothing for our population with serious health concerns who can't go indoors for any reason at this time. Fortunately, there is an inexpensive solution to help provide outdoor access to the resources the public has already paid for. The schools can install, low-powered, external access points. We have even offered to install them for them. However, their official stance is that they believe that this would make them an ISP. However, the schools already offer guest access at their buildings and this would simply be an extension of that existing service so it hardly turns them into an ISP. On top of this, the tax payers have always been good to the schools in Bellingham, even approving a $170 million dollar technology levy over the next 4 years and many expensive buildings. APs only cost $300 to $600 each depending on which one you choose. So the schools can easily afford this. Remember that Mason PUD#3 and the Bellingham Public Libraries have already done similar things to help out their citizens at this time. Ultimately this is a band-aid solution though and what they really need to do is publicly push for fiber to the home. This is in line with their educational mission as students, staff and the community learn at home as well as at school. So please, contact the schools and ask them to support a community during that has always supported them. Please remember that adequate broadband access effects the poor the most. Especially now. Just like with the COB, all anyone is asking for is access to the public resources we've already paid for. The contacts are below.

kurt.gazow@bellinghamschools.org,Greg.Baker@bellinghamschools.org, Jay.Jordan@bellinghamschools.org, janis.velasquezfarmer@bellinghamschools.org