Charter School gets $552,000 Kellogg grant
By Sarah Tully Tapia
The Arizona Daily Star, July 11, 1998
A half-million-dollar grant from a private foundation
will enable PPEP TEC High School to link up existing
computers at 14 campuses.
It is the first charter school in the nation to receive
a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, said Superintendent
Jim Parks.
"This is really amazing," Parks said. "Usually,
Kellogg doesn't fund the first time around. They usually
like to negotiate some. They were so impressed with
the grant they gave us the entire amount we asked for
the first time around."
The nonprofit foundation, based in Battle Creek, Mich.,
was established in 1930 by the cereal industry pioneer
with the goal to "help people help themselves"
around the world, according to the foundation's Web
site. One of the interest areas is Youth, Education
and Higher Education. The foundation currently has about
700 active grants in that area, ranging from a few thousand
to several million dollars.
The 870-student PPEP TEC, which is short for Portable
Practical Educational Preparation Training for Employment
Centers, received the $552,000 on June 30.
Currently, only one computer at each campus has Internet
access - and that is only used by the staff, said Jacquie
Williams, director of curriculum and instructional technology.
In the first year of the three-year grant, the school
will concentrate on building the intranet of the 180
computers and training 75 teachers and aides. In the
last year, the school will have video conferencing in
the Tucson and San Luis sites. Through that, Tucson
teachers will be able to instruct students in San Luis
simultaneously, W said.
The schools will use their computer labs as community
resource centers on weekends and evenings, Williams
said.
Businesses could utilize the computers for training,
agencies could put on parent classes and students in
long-distance courses could conduct research, Williams
said. That is especially important for rural areas with
more limited Internet access.
"Some of the sites are even difficult for the
homeowner to have" Internet connections, Williams
said.
There would be "no possible way" for the
school to do the project using only its state money,
Parks said. The new capital finance plan is allocating
an extra $400 per student annually for capital items,
according to the Legislature.
PPEP TEC was one of the first two charter schools to
open in Tucson in 1995. The alternative public school,
targeting at-risk students and dropouts, now has more
sites than any other charter in the state. The 14 campuses
are in Avondale, Bisbee, Casa Grande, Chandler, Douglas,
Marana, San Luis, Sierra Vista, Somerton, Willcox and
Tucson.
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