CISD gets $674k grant for technology equipment

By Roger Estlack

A new grant will expand technology education beyond the classrooms of Clarendon ISD and across generations.

The Texas Education Agency awarded $674,698 to the school district last Tuesday from the 2000 Technology Integration in Education (TIE) initiative, a state program funded through the federal Technology Literacy Challenge Fund.

The 100 percent grant will provide funds to purchase multimedia computer equipment and software for the school, the Saints’ Roost Museum, and the Burton Memorial and to provide training for teachers.

“Teaching an Old Town New Tricks” is the title given to CISD’s program, which will integrate new technology into the curriculum from kindergarten through high school. The school hopes to prepare local students and citizens for the future while also using computers to preserve local history.

CISD Technology Coordinator Marva Thomas said she was “elated, exhilarated, and overwhelmed” about receiving the grant.

Thomas, along with high school business teacher Melody Hysinger and former junior high English teacher Helen Estlack, prepared the district’s grant application. The CISD Technology Planning Committee also provided input.

The bulk of the work on the grant was done recently, but the project has its roots in a technology needs assessment survey taken by the district in 1997.

“We had about 90 to 100 man hours go into writing this grant,” Thomas said. “Now we have a year to get everything organized, spent, and done.”

The grant will allow CISD to address the needs of the entire community through partnerships with the museum and the city/county library. Training for teachers and collaborative partners will be done through Clarendon College, Thomas said.

The effort to make computer technology available to older citizens in Donley County will center in the Burton Memorial Library and the Clarendon High School Library, each of which will receive new equipment under the grant.

When the program is up and running, the school library will be open two nights a week for use by participants in an adult literacy program and by students preparing to take the GED test or other similar examinations.

The Burton Library will provide space for citizens and students to study local genealogy and will receive two new computers with genealogy software and a new printer under the grant.

“We are so thrilled,” said city/county librarian Carolyn Blackerby. “We’ve been keeping our computers together with Band-Aids.”

Blackerby said the new computers will be used to supplement the old ones and will ease overcrowding on the computers by the staff. She also feels the school’s program is pulling the community together.

“It’s helping everybody work together,” she said.

Museum officials were also excited about the school’s grant, which will fund two new computers, two printers, a scanner, and a digital camera for that organization.

“We’re very happy,” said Judi Synek, vice president of the museum. “The museum’s computers were hit by Y2K and have been useless.”

Synek said the museum will use the new machines to properly catalogue its collection and could make the computers available, too, for genealogy purposes.

Altogether the state awarded $33 million in federal funds to 25 school districts and educational consortiums for technology-based projects. Clarendon was the smallest district to receive funding, and the local project was the only one funded in the entire Panhandle region.

There were more than 160 grant applications from across the state. The state awarded priority to applicants that addressed the state’s Public Access Initiative.

The TIE initiative grants address the recommendations in the State Board of Education’s Long-Range Plan for Technology, 1996-2010, in three areas: teaching and learning, educator preparation, and development and administrative and support services.

More information regarding TIE awards and future grant opportunities can be found on the TEA Web site at www.tea.state.tx.us, under Technology.