Morrison Elementary acquires new lab

By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Morrison teacher Gail Curtis helps seventh-grader Ben Durham with an assignment in the school’s new computer lab. (Will Stewart photo)

By the time a student leaves the eighth grade, state law requires him or her to have logged a minimum of 120 hours on a school computer. At Morrison Elementary, which had only a few older computers in some classrooms last year, meeting this requirement was no simple task.

It has become infinitely easier this year, however, as the school recently acquired its first computer lab complete with a state-of-the-art wireless system featuring 27 computers.

“This is a tremendous asset for our students,” said Morrison principal Ronnie Brown. “Getting something this nice would have been hard to pull off anywhere in the state, but because Morrison is such a strong community they really made it happen.”

Brown said the school faced three major challenges in getting a computer lab. First, the school did not have the approximately $35,000 necessary to equip such a lab. Second, it did not have the space for that many computers. And third, the school did not have an extra teacher needed to oversee the lab and teach the students who were to use it.

The funding problem was solved by the combined efforts of the school system, the Morrison PTO and various local businesses and organizations.

Approximately one-third of the needed money was made possible from the budget of the school system’s technology department and its director, Katrina Haley. Almost half of the amount was garnered through donations from the school’s partners-in-education, several local and area businesses and labor groups and several anonymous donations. The final amount was contributed from the school itself and the money it generates through various fundraisers and vending sales.

With funding taken care of, classroom space and an instructor were still needed. Brown solved this problem by appropriating the classroom of teacher Gail Curtis, who had previously taught spelling. Now, with the computer lab in her room, Curtis can teach not only spelling, but also reading and other language arts subjects, the teaching of which is being highly stressed as they are the system’s lowest performing areas.

The lab will also be used to teach the essential subject of keyboarding. Brown said eighth-grade students will be given the opportunity to take a test which will allow them to test out of the required keyboarding class at the high school.

Primarily using the lab with be used by the school’s sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, who will visit the lab every day. Brown said the lab will be open to the school’s younger students during Curtis’ planning and lunch periods.