Connect Bertie aids Bertie students
Published Tuesday, March 2, 2010
WINDSOR – Bertie County School is mapping a new direction for federal money being spent on education.
Last week, the Bertie County Board of Education put its stamp of approval on Connect Bertie, a bold initiative to provide broadband internet to students throughout the county to help aid their studies.
“We’ve received federal funding since the (Lyndon) Johnson era,” said Bertie County Schools Superintendent Dr. Chip Zullinger. “Too many districts use that funding to remediate and to employ people.
“For the last several years, I’ve felt there was a better way to spend the funding and to level the playing field for students who are in poverty,” he added.
Bertie County Schools followed that idea by moving forward with an initiative that will provide 1,407 families in Bertie County with computers and free broadband internet service.
The school district is working with Century Link to provide the internet access throughout Bertie County. They have also received a grant from Golden Leaf that will allow them to purchase the desktops computers that will go into those homes.
“This initiative will more than double the internet connectivity in Bertie County,” Dr. Zullinger said. “There are tons of people on dial-up now that will have broadband access in a couple of months.”
The access will cost Bertie County Schools $40 per month per household for the first two years of the program and then will drop to $20 per month for the final three years of the five-year deal.
The computers and free internet access will be given to all students in the school district who receive free or reduced lunch. Dr. Zullinger said that would mean about 80 percent of the students in the district would qualify.
Because access will be spread throughout the county, those who can afford internet access, but who have dial-up connections, now would likely be able to get a broadband connection through Century Link.
The bill will be paid by Bertie County Schools through the use of Title I, stimulus and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act money.
Dr. Zullinger said students in Bertie County would now all have equal access to the internet and to the type of research available so that homework and other school activities would be easier at home.
The internet hookups and the computers will remain the property of Bertie County Schools and filtering software will be used to keep unwanted content away from students, according to the superintendent.
“Content will be controlled, but not invasively so,” Dr. Zullinger said. “We will make sure our kids don’t get to the stuff they shouldn’t as best we can. It will be the same level of controls that we have over computers in our schools.”
Dr. Zullinger credited three community members with aiding the school district’s effort to launch Connect Bertie. They were Dr. David Peele, John Davis and Ron Wesson.
“If we had tried to make this happen as a school system, we wouldn’t have gotten there,” Dr. Zullinger said. “This is beyond the capacity of a normal school system. Fortunately, we’ve had so much help from these three men and many others in moving this initiative forward.”
The official launch of Connect Bertie is scheduled for later this spring and students are expected to be online by August.
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