Recent editorials from Alabama newspapers:
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March 31
Florence Times Daily on how the coronavirus pandemic is highlighting issues with internet accessibility:
Last week, Gov. Kay Ivey bowed to the inevitable and called an end to on-site school instruction for the remainder of the academic year.
Now teachers and administrators are racing to finish the year remotely when school resumes - such as is possible - on April 6. For some students, this will mean going online. For others, who either lack internet access or have slow access, it will be more old-fashioned.
“We certainly do have different levels of capacity all across the state” State Superintendent Eric Mackey said on March 26. “We have school districts that have essentially one-to-one computer capacity and they have pretty good broadband access because of their geographic location in the state. We have other places where we have almost no broadband connectivity.”
Parts of Lauderdale and Colbert counties fall into the latter category. With online instruction scheduled to begin April 6, they’ve got a week to figure out how be deal with the problem.
Lauderdale County Schools Superintendent Jon Hatton said the lack of internet service in rural areas of the county will be a challenge for many of his students.
“We will have to depend on the paper and pencil somewhat,” said Hatton. “I don’t see any other way some of the rural areas can be reached.”
Colbert County, Tuscumbia and Sheffield schools face similar problems.
Tuscumbia sent out a survey on on March 27 to try to determine how many families are without internet service or wireless internet. Principals will be sending out messages through the school system’s alert system to keep parents updated on instructional plans.
Sheffield school officials are scrambling to figure out the same thing. Superintendent Keith Davis said his system does not have WiFi hot spots for its students. Parents will received information about their children’s assignments the week of April 6.
Colbert County Superintendent Gale Satchel estimates up to 70% of her students could be without adequate internet service, and most do not have WiFi hot spots available.
Her teachers mailed out information about course work last week.
The issue of internet access is even trickier because students without access at home often rely on their local public library to get online. Those libraries, however, are themselves closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
All of this highlights what until now has largely been an economic development concern: improving the state’s broadband infrastructure and increasing internet access in rural areas.
Unfortunately, this is not a problem that is going to solve itself in the middle of a crisis, and few people were thinking about this eventuality even when they were promoting increased broadband connectivity.
This is an issue that needs the involvement of the state Legislature, if only to help grease the regulatory skids.
State Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, has been sponsoring a bill that would set a statewide standard for deploying 5G cellular infrastructure, including how much money cities can charge providers for access to existing utility structures.
Predictably, however, that bill has run into opposition from cities that see charging providers for utility access as a potential cash cow.
Whether Orr’s bill will pass this year is in serious doubt regardless. The Legislature is in recess with no date certain for returning to work. Time is running out on the regular session, and lawmakers have yet to do the one thing they’re obligated to do: pass the state’s education and General Fund budgets.
Many economic development officials in the Shoals have listed improved internet access as one the top future priorities. The pandemic has helped us realize just how important this issue is.
Online: https://www.timesdaily.com
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March 31
The Gadsden Times on showing appreciation for grocery store workers:
You cannot log onto the internet, pick up a newspaper or turn on a television and not see people offering prayers, gratitude and support for health care professionals struggling to cope with the coronavirus.
It’s absolutely deserved and we loudly add our voices to the chorus. The stories from exhausted and in some cases ill-equipped doctors, nurses and other participants on the front lines of the battlefields where COVID-19 is rampaging are heartbreaking and sobering. (They also reinforce - and yes, we’re nagging again - the need to follow social distancing guidelines so we can get a handle on this crisis sooner than later.)
However, we’re going to send out some praise to folks who may not be saving lives, but are providing a truly essential service right now despite significant and in a lot of cases preventable and regrettable obstacles.
When things are normal, shoppers rarely give a thought to what it takes to ensure grocery store shelves are stocked. The goods, food and otherwise are just “there” for people who zip down the aisles, grab what they want off shelves and toss it into their carts, zip their cards through the reader and load up their cars and head home.
It’s been a little tougher in these abnormal times, hasn’t it?
Shelves are periodically picked clean, depending on the latest dire or restrictive announcement, by fearful, panicked people stocking up as if the apocalypse was upon us. (As bad as this situation is, it isn’t.)
Although analysts universally insist there are sufficient goods in the supply chain and no real shortages are imminent, the heightened demand has sometimes made it difficult for local merchants especially to get exactly what they’ve ordered, in a timely fashion, in the quantity they need. (Of course it doesn’t help when people see a cart full of toilet paper and pick it clean like piranhas gorging on chum before it even gets to the shelves.)
Still, those merchants are diligently working to serve and provide for their customers, adjusting their hours of operation so they can stock shelves and clean their stores. (Which can be a challenge when entire stir-crazy families who see shopping as an opportunity to “get out of the house,” instead of something that should be done on a have-to basis right now, are clogging the aisles.)
They’re also taking the heat from folks who don’t understand disrupted supply-and-demand issues and are angry that prices have had to be raised. (We take grocers at their word that they love and want to be there for customers, but that doesn’t include a vow of poverty.)
We’re sure people - maybe most people - are grateful and understanding right now. We challenge those who aren’t to get with the program. Most of all, we hope everyone will be a little more appreciative of normality once it returns - and it will.
Online: https://www.gadsdentimes.com
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March 29
Opelika-Auburn News on community response in the search for a missing girl:
A bright ray of sunshine broke through the stormy clouds on March 27 when news came that a little 4-year-old girl missing for 49 hours was found alive and well in the thick woods near where she had disappeared.
Vadie Sides was out walking with a baby sitter and the family dog when she managed to slip out of sight with the dog.
Within hours the search for her expanded, and by late on March 26 the call for more volunteers was sounded.
And here they came, by the hundreds, to the rural Lee County road between Loachapoka and Waverly.
They came in big pickup trucks. They came with four-wheelers made for tough terrain. They came with thick, tall boots good for battling the thickets and briar-patch underbrush.
They came.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones and his crew, local EMS Director Austin Bayles and his crews, Lee County Commissioner Johnny Lawrence and other local leaders and hero first-responders were flanked by what one estimate said was 400 volunteers on March 27.
Those who volunteered were carefully organized into teams and assigned grids to search, with the requirement that everyone completed the search of their grid. If one volunteer in the group had to leave, they all had to pull back, to prevent anyone else becoming lost.
No one pulled back.
Instead, everyone came together, and during this day of battling the global coronavirus pandemic known as COVID-19, “social distancing” may have gotten lost, but Vadie Sides was found.
A hearty thank you goes to all of those who proved to be good neighbors and caring souls, and who answered the call to come serve on a warm spring day in the rural Alabama backwoods.
Congratulations and well done.
You found a lost little girl, and you gave us all a smile.
Smiles are good medicine these days.
Online: https://www.oanow.com
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