IRVINE : School Computer Link in the Works

Call it education without boundaries.

The Irvine Unified School District is nearly halfway through a $10-million fund-raising campaign that aims to create a public education prototype for the age of information.

With the help of engineering giant Fluor Daniel, the school district is designing a computer system that will link schools with local, national and international computer networks. Organizers hope that the “Foundations of the Future” project becomes a model for school districts throughout the country. It already has attracted the attention of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is planning to film a documentary about it.

“This is the most ambitious program of its type in the state,” said John F. Dean, superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education and a member of the project’s advisory board.

Irvine schools will be linked by computer to universities, libraries and other public schools throughout the country in addition to information data bases available through Internet.

School district officials say the day will come soon when students working at home will be able to connect to the school district’s computer system to complete homework assignments. They even will be able to send their teachers E mail.

On Tuesday night, the school board created a nonprofit organization to govern Foundations for the Future and revealed that the district has raised $4.9 million in donations and pledges since January.

Working through the Russ Reid Co., a Pasadena marketing and fund-raising firm, the school district has secured a $3-million pledge from the Irvine Co. and major donations from Fluor Daniel, Dimension Cable, Pacific Bell, Standard Pacific Corp., the Irvine Health Foundation and others. Fund-raisers hope to reach the district’s $10-million goal by the end of 1995, but some Irvine teachers already have begun training.

Fluor Daniel is designing a computer system for the school district that initially will be “piggy-backed” onto the company’s worldwide computer system. Dimension Cable will provide a fiber-optic network to interconnect Irvine schools and link them to worldwide computer systems.

Irvine is not the first school district to seek outside donations during a time of limited state education funding.

“If any district wants to go beyond the basic education package, they almost always have to go outside for extra funding,” Dean said, “because there isn’t research and development money available at the state level.”

Keith Greer, president of the Irvine Co.’s home-building division, has been active in calling on potential corporate donors. He said the school district’s concept of how to use computer technology to develop students’ critical thinking skills has loosened corporate purse strings.

“The technology has been available, but the integration of this technology into the curriculum is what’s really new here,” Greer said. “This really is a model for the entire country.”