Getting Wired : Volunteers to Link Schools to Internet, but Some Missing Out

On Saturday, Somis Elementary School will get wired.

A handful of volunteers from local high-technology companies will put on their overalls, drill holes through the school’s 60-year-old walls and install state-of-the-art wiring.

And by day’s end, the rural school will have its 12 classrooms and library ready to connect to the Internet.

The school will also get a server, a high-speed computer that will act as the school’s gateway to the global network.

And for Thelma Edmundson, superintendent of the one-school district and principal of the school, the cost will be absolutely nothing.

Somis is one of many California schools taking full advantage of NetDay 96, a grass-roots effort to wire all the state’s schools to the Internet.

But many Ventura County schools will not take part in what is being billed as “a high-tech barn raising.” Some for lack of volunteers. Others for lack of interest or because NetDay doesn’t fit into their overall technology plans. Others still for lack of initiative.

“NetDay has been somewhat of a disappointment for us,” said Richard Duarte, assistant superintendent for educational services for the 14-school Oxnard Elementary School District. “We had three calls from volunteers.”

NetDay organizers have set up a site on the World Wide Web with maps showing every school in California. The maps flag with red dots those schools with no volunteers. Those with four or fewer volunteers are flagged with yellow, and those with more than four volunteers are in green. A majority of the county’s schools are still flagged red.

Statewide, more than 13,000 volunteers have signed up at more than 7,000 schools.

“Part of it is the lack of high-tech industry in our area,” Duarte said.

But that is only part of the picture.

“We have tried to do something,” said Ron Frake of Fishnet, a local Internet access provider. “We contacted some schools, but they didn’t get back to us.”

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Ventura schools are at vastly different stages in their efforts to integrate technology in their classrooms. Simi Valley Unified School District, for instance, has one computer for every 35 students, while Hueneme Elementary School District has one computer for every three students. And depending on where the schools are in their overall technology plans, NetDay may or may not come in at the right time.

“The schools that are really pushing technology don’t find NetDay so important,” said Ken Prosser, of the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Office. “The ones at the other end don’t even have a technology plan and can’t take advantage of NetDay.”

Ventura High is one of the schools that is not participating in NetDay.

“We are a little ahead of the game,” said Principal Henry Robertson. His school will be wired to the Internet very soon, he said. But other schools could be missing a good opportunity, Robertson said.

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And with many schools in the county lacking even primitive electrical cabling needed to link computers to the Internet, he may be right.

For most schools the cost for participating in NetDay is small. Organizers have put together a list of items needed for the wiring. The required kit costs less than $450, and in most cases is being donated by volunteers and sponsors. Several telecommunications companies and local Internet access providers have also offered free Internet access to schools.

“If they [the schools] contracted for this they’d be spending probably $5,000,” said NetDay organizer John Gage of Sun Microsystems in an interview published on the World Wide Web. “There are drawings, scheduling and a whole set of things. It turns out that you don’t need all this.”

Seth Brandes, a local sales representative with Sun Microsystems, is spearheading the effort at Somis School. Brandes is also donating the computer that will serve as the school’s gateway to the Internet.

“Without volunteer effort, this would cost more than $1 billion in California,” Brandes said. “Schools have to find people within their community to volunteer. It doesn’t take a whole lot of people.”

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Part of the problem, Brandes said, is that many educators are not aware of the vast educational resources available on the Internet. Those resources are too vast to enumerate, but they include virtual libraries, opportunities to interact with students, professionals and scientists worldwide, and sites with sample lecture plans for every subject imaginable, he said.

“Here’s a poor district with few resources,” Brandes said about Somis. “You can get all of that free on the Internet.”

How involved schools are with NetDay has much to do with the individual efforts of parents and school officials.

Resource-rich Oak Park Unified School District already has three of its six schools wired to the Internet and is jumping on the NetDay bandwagon to wire one more. Two weeks ago, school officials called a meeting to attract volunteers.

“It dovetails well with our plans,” said Stan Mantooth, assistant superintendent for business services. A group of six volunteers will work under the supervision of a site administrator to wire Oak Park High, Mantooth said.

At Poinsettia Elementary in Ventura, the efforts were spearheaded by fifth-grade teacher Michelle Cybulski and a couple of parents. They contacted every parent in the school and gathered 10 more volunteers.

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At De Anza Middle School in the same district, Principal David Myers said that although he is fully aware of the Internet’s potential, his school will stick with the district’s overall plans.

“There are a lot of questions,” Myers said. “How would we use it [the Internet]? How would we train our teachers?” Myers expressed concern about having a coherent plan districtwide, a view echoed by district administrators.

The concept of a grass-roots effort run by volunteers is also something school and district officials are not entirely comfortable with.

“Having a bunch of volunteers running into schools drilling walls makes a lot of people nervous,” Prosser said.

And some school officials said there could be problems with asbestos and other hazards at the schools, as well as concerns with liability.

Drilling through walls and pulling wires, however, is not the only way to participate in NetDay.

At Vista Fundamental, a magnet elementary school in Simi Valley, Principal Barbara Marino said the school does not have an overall technology plan. But the school will take advantage of NetDay by hosting a pancake breakfast for volunteers.

“We are not ready to pull wires,” Marino said. “But we have some willing volunteer consultants that will guide us in developing our long-term plans.”

With NetDay just three days away it is not too late to volunteer. But because it is a grass-roots effort, one problem is finding out where to volunteer.

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NetDay organizers recommend checking in with the online site at https://www.netday96.com. The site provides sign-up sheets, numbers of volunteers and contact information for every school in California.

For those without access to the Internet, the best approach is to contact individual schools.

And for those who don’t get a chance to participate this time, there will be other opportunities.

“March 9 is the kickoff day for an ongoing process,” Gage said. The NetDay World Wide Web page will serve as a huge database for information on the status of each school’s technical capability, he added.

“It stays up until we have network access to every school and every classroom.”

’ The schools that are really pushing technology don’t find NetDay so important. The ones at the other end don’t even have a technology plan and can’t take advantage of NetDay.’