City schools land half-million grant


Thursday, December 18, 2008
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City schools land half-million grant

By SUE WATSON
Staff Writer

The Holly Springs School District has been advised it will receive a $490,000 grant to continue its distance learning initiative for another year, according to Jones Mays with the district.

The grant is a continuation of a three-year grant the district received three years ago. A common feature of the initiative is to provide computer networking for classroom instruction for schools that are separated geographically by creating a consortium.

Some of the features of this grant include:

salary to hire a national authority on distance learning to drive the program. The hire will join the staff in May 2009, Mays said.
expanding the existing consortium. Participating entities will be expanded to include the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, the National Blues Museum in Clarksdale, and the school districts of Tunica, Quitman, Greenwood and Greenville and Rust College.
virtual field trips to places like the White House, Smithsonian and Capitol.
AP (advanced placement) courses.
an archive where students who miss a class can take the trip on their own at a later time.

All technology grants in the district are tied to the school district’s new technology plan that was updated this year as a part of a revision of the district’s strategic plan. Two years ago the technology grant provided laptop computers to some students and this year the entire ninth grade received laptops. The program puts technology in the hands of students and provides a valuable tool for class assignments and projects and for preparing reports. The ninth grade was targeted to help motivate students who sometimes are tempted to drop out of school during their ninth year.

“There is something going on now at every campus,” Mays said of the technology education program in the school district.

The week before Thanksgiving, students at the Primary School attended a class in the library that featured a virtual field trip.

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