Case Study: East Side Union High School District achieves home broadband access and digital equity for students with RUCKUS Networks

East Side Union High School District and the city of San Jose beyond the classroom digital learning with Wi-Fi

East Side Union High School District (ESUHSD) in San Jose — a 19‑school district serving about 24,500 students — faced a significant digital equity gap: 30–40% of students at some schools lacked home broadband, making it difficult to complete homework or take full advantage of one‑to‑one Chromebooks and digital curriculum.

Through the Access East Side initiative ESUHSD invested $2.7 million in voter‑approved bond funds and partnered with the City of San Jose and SmartWAVE to extend the city’s outdoor Wi‑Fi, deploying 197 Ruckus T300 outdoor access points. The free network now reaches targeted neighborhoods and supports roughly 1,700 students (carrying terabytes of data monthly), improving homework completion and digital learning access while offering a replicable model for district–city collaboration.

East Side Union High School District

Randal Phelps

Chief Technology Officer