How Kawara Town Turned Closed Schools into Secure, Connected Community Hubs with NETGEAR

Kawara Town in Japan turned closed schools into vibrant, connected community hubs by deploying NETGEAR Pro AV switches and WiFi 7. With secure, cloud-managed networking built for scalability, the town now supports digital events, online meetings, and community activities—while laying a foundation for long-term growth.

Background

Kawara Town, located in Tagawa District, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, is revitalizing former school buildings as vibrant community gathering spaces through the Okaeri Shūgakkō (Welcome Back School) Project. Once a thriving coal-mining town, Kawara has faced population decline and an aging demographic in recent years, prompting the town to focus on initiatives that strengthen local connections and create places where residents can gather and interact.

In 2021, Kawara Town opened a new consolidated educational facility, Kawara Shieikan, which resulted in the closure of four elementary schools and two junior high schools. Rather than leaving these sites unused, the town partnered with Ringrow and local organizations to repurpose them as community assets. Facilities such as Nakatsubaru Shūgakkō and the Magari-kane Nursery School have been reborn as community centers that host meetings, events, and daily activities for residents of all ages.

To support these new roles, Kawara Town deployed NETGEAR switching and WiFi solutions to build a modern digital infrastructure from the ground up in aging facilities. The result is a reliable, secure, centrally managed network environment that provides stable connectivity for community activities today and a scalable foundation for future growth, transforming former schools into sustainable digital community hubs.

Challenge

The closed school facilities presented significant technical challenges. While some legacy LAN cabling remained, most buildings had no existing WiFi infrastructure, requiring the network environment to be built almost entirely from scratch. Community centers needed stable connectivity for administrative work, online meetings, and public use, including areas such as offices, classrooms, gyms, and event spaces.

Previously, different operators and tenants installed WiFi independently, resulting in fragmented networks that were difficult to manage. Each time a tenant changed, administrators had to manually reconfigure SSIDs and passwords, increasing operational burden and risk. Security was also a major concern, especially when considering low-cost networking equipment.
Operational constraints further complicated the situation. Kawara Town had limited IT staff, tight budgets, and facilities that were not originally designed to support modern digital use. Without a reliable solution, the town risked being unable to support online meetings, digital events, or future expansion initiatives, such as outdoor Wi-Fi coverage.

“If we focused only on cost, security concerns would always remain. We needed a solution we could trust.” — Akihisa Yamamoto, Principal, Nakatsubaru Shūgakkō

Solution

Kawara Town selected NETGEAR to provide a secure, reliable, and easy-to-manage networking foundation for its community facilities.

The deployment included:

• NETGEAR M4350 Series ProAV Switches (GSM4328-100AJS)
• NETGEAR WiFi 7 Access Points (WBE710-100APS) with Insight cloud management

Network architecture supports centralized management across multiple facilities, enabling administrators to manage SSIDs, passwords, and configurations through the NETGEAR cloud platform. This approach significantly reduced the complexity of managing multiple tenants and user groups.

Key NETGEAR features that proved critical included:

• Cloud-based centralized management, reducing IT workload
• Enterprise-grade security, addressing concerns around data protection
• High-performance WiFi 7 support, ensuring future-ready connectivity
• Scalability, allowing easy expansion to gyms and outdoor areas
• The solution also integrated smoothly into existing buildings with minimal disruption, making deployment practical even in aging facilities.

“With NETGEAR’s cloud management, we can centrally manage SSIDs and passwords. This has greatly reduced our administrative burden.” — Yuki Murakami, Community Development Division, Kawara Town

Results

Since deploying NETGEAR networking solutions, Kawara Town has seen immediate and tangible improvements. Online meetings are now stable and interruption-free, even as WiFi 7-compatible devices become more common. Staff and community members report a noticeably better user experience.

Operational efficiency has improved significantly. Centralized management has reduced setup time, simplified troubleshooting, and lowered ongoing maintenance demands—an important benefit for facilities with limited IT resources and frequent changes in users or tenants.

Most importantly, the upgraded network infrastructure has enabled new possibilities. Community centers can now support digital events, hybrid meetings, and future initiatives such as outdoor WiFi coverage for festivals and public gatherings. NETGEAR has helped position Kawara Town’s community hubs for long-term sustainability and growth.

“Online meetings are now smooth, and staff appreciate that meetings no longer disconnect.” — Akihisa Yamamoto, Principal, Nakatsubaru Shūgakkō

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