Upgrading Amid Concerns

WiFi 101 - Despite health concerns raised by some parents, the Vancouver School Board will install wireless Internet service in public schools next year - The Vancouver Courier

Maureen Ciarniello, an associate superintendent with the Vancouver School Board, says that it would not only be more expensive to instead install ethernet ports, it would be less practical.

"The thing about having it all wired in means that you basically can't be mobile, you can't be flexible and it doesn't allow for support of different devices. We know secondary students are using mobile devices that are very small and you wouldn't be able to wire those into a system."

Six years ago, the VSB passed a resolution prohibiting the construction of cellphone towers within 305 metres of school property because of the chance children would be more susceptible to this form of radiation. Ciarniello says the two issues aren't comparable.

"I was just reviewing the Health Canada guidelines, and the information on cellphone towers has different parameters than the Wi-Fi so the government itself has set up different bits of information around that. I don't think it is exactly congruent."

Katherine Taylor, however, doesn't want to see her 10 year-old son or any other child potentially exposed to radio frequency (RF) radiation six hours a day, five days a week, for 40 weeks of the year, and says the dangers haven't been adequately researched.

"Canada's guidelines are based on a short-term (six-minute) heating effect. It is assumed that if this radiation does not heat your tissue it is 'safe.' This is not correct. Effects are documented at levels well below those that are able to heat body tissue- Exposure to this energy is associated with altered white blood cells in school children; childhood leukemia; impaired motor function, reaction time, and memory; headaches, dizziness, fatigue, weakness, and insomnia."

"Digital immersion is a catchall phrase for a wide range of initiatives we have implemented here at John Oliver," principal Gino Bondi said in a media release two weeks ago. "In this area, the sky really is the limit."