No More Netflix on Student Wifi

For the majority of the 2016-2017 school year at Arrowhead, Netflix has remained accessible to students on the guest wifi. However, students returned from the weekend break on Monday, May 1, to find that netflix was no longer available on the school’s network.

Lauren Henzlik says, “I just thought it was maybe a temporary glitch in the network because Netflix has been available all year, but I came to find it’s actually blocked now.”

According to reelreel.com, in a 2015 report it was recorded that 27% of school graduates were watching Netflix a number of times each day.

Arrowhead has been known to have bandwidth problems with the network. Given the size of the student body and the frequency of use of the wireless network, the system sometimes get overwhelmed.

In my personal class schedule, technology is required 70% of my classes. Bandwidth problems have risen particularly during state testing days such as the ACT aspire.

With the ACT Aspire test approaching for Arrowhead sophomores on May 15, 16, 22, and 23, there is irritation among the juniors and seniors. In prior years, the juniors, seniors and freshmen get off for all four testing days. However, this year juniors and seniors are required to attend classes at North Campus.

On these days due to the large amount of sophomores who will be on the internet server for aspire testing, North campus is to have a “tech free day.” This means absolutely no internet use at North campus whatsoever.

According to an email sent by the director of learning Sue Casetta, “For Aspire testing, which is a computer based assessment, we are hoping that you can plan these days as LOW TECH or NO TECH lessons.  This impacts North Campus mostly, as classes are not running at south during testing. Please avoid, as much as possible, any work that would put stress on our bandwidth, especially streaming videos/audio.  We will be turning off the guest access to our wireless network on testing days.”

According to junior Jaxson Carr, “I get it. It probably sucks that South Campus teachers still have to teach and North Campus teachers get four days [without students]. But also, how are we supposed to conduct school in a regular and productive way with no technology? Nearly every single one of my classes relies on the internet.”

Arrowhead has had issues with the bandwidth of the network. During Wisconsin mandated civics test proctored last year, for about an hour, students were not able to access the test due to the network being used by every student in at Arrowhead.

Henzlik believes that Netflix was blocked as an attempt to improve the wireless network, due to the fact that streaming video slows down a server significantly.

Henzlik says, “I get that we have a huge student population and it makes sense that with somewhere near a hundred people using Netflix at once, it can be a problem. But it really is a bummer that I can’t access it here anymore.”

Teachers are still able to access Netflix on their staff network, however Netflix is off the table for student access.