In case you missed it – In a new op-ed for District Administration, Jason Eyre, Technology Department Coordinator at Murray City School District in Utah, reveals how Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) became a lifeline for students in crisis.
Murray City School District serves 6,200 students across 10 schools in Utah’s Salt Lake Valley, and digital learning is now foundational to education. CBRS allowed the district to deploy a private cellular network to fill critical coverage gaps. Rooftop antennas improved campus coverage. Routers on school buses enable real-time safety monitoring. The district brought cellular service to Parkside Elementary, a school that sat in a dead zone where no signal could reach.
Through a program, CBRS allowed a middle school student and her family, who were living in their car, to use a school-issued Chromebook charged daily to complete her homework alongside every other student. Her parents used the same device to search for jobs and submit applications. That single Chromebook and the connectivity powered by CBRS became a bridge for an entire family during their most difficult period.
The district has since deployed more than 400 CBRS-compatible routers to households with three or more students. “Every student we connect is a student equipped to learn, to compete, and to build a future. Shared spectrum is helping us make that possible—and Utah students are better for it,” Eyre writes.
Read Jason’s full op-ed here.
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How To Transform Education With Shared Spectrum
District Administration
May 18, 2026
Every day in our classrooms, students navigate digital curricula on Chromebooks, participate in real-time online assessments, and stream educational content through cloud-based platforms. This is not the exception anymore. This is how education happens — and our students cannot succeed without reliable connectivity.
We learned this lesson early. In 2019, we launched a private LTE network using Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum for a specific purpose: installing security cameras on our high school’s driver’s education range. Those two cameras have run continuously for seven years. But then something shifted. We realized this technology could help us strengthen connectivity across our entire district.
Today, we serve 6,200 students across 10 schools in Utah’s Salt Lake Valley. Modern digital learning places growing demands on networks — even households with reliable home internet face challenges when multiple children are online simultaneously while parents manage work responsibilities. Building a private cellular network using CBRS spectrum gave us the flexibility to fill specific coverage and capacity gaps tied directly to our students’ needs. While commercial providers are the backbone of how our community connects, CBRS lets us extend that reach into places and situations they can’t always serve alone.
We placed antennas on school rooftops to improve campus coverage. We installed routers on school buses with cameras to monitor student safety in real time. We partnered with Infinity to bring cellular service to Parkside Elementary, a school that sat in a geographic dead zone where no reliable signal could reach the building. Today, staff can call 911. Students can reach their families. That building no longer sits at the edge of connectivity.
The most powerful impact, however, came through our work with students experiencing homelessness.
Read the rest of the article at District Administration.