NetDay2 Gives Students Access to the World

There were big steps and tiny ones taken Saturday as volunteers across Los Angeles tried for the second time in seven months to wire schools so students can connect classroom computers to the Internet.

In the Laurel Canyon area above Hollywood, all 15 classrooms at Wonderland Avenue School were hooked up and 10 donated computers plugged in. In addition to installing computer cables, about 150 volunteers painted and landscaped the campus.

In Compton, a handful of telephone company workers and teachers at Augusta Mayo Elementary School strung bright blue computer cables down the wall of the campus’ library. School officials still must move computers from the computer lab to the library.

About 200 schools took part in NetDay2, designed to untangle confusion and red tape that slowed the first NetDay in March. Organizers acknowledge that the first time around, many schools did not have time to recruit and properly train volunteers in wiring.

Although the precise number of classrooms and volunteers participating was impossible to tally, organizers said Saturday’s effort appeared far more successful. The scope of most of the wiring projects fell somewhere between those in Laurel Canyon and Compton.

At Alhambra’s kindergarten-through-eighth-grade Park School, the six classrooms used by upper grades were wired by 15 volunteers from Pacific Bell. Principal Marsha Gilbert said six new computers purchased by the Alhambra School District will be plugged into the Internet on Monday.

The hundreds of feet of free cable--and the free labor by the professional phone installers--saved Park School at least $5,000, said Eric Norwood, a phone company splicer from Diamond Bar.

Several students watched patiently as the wires were pulled through classroom ceilings. “I have a grandma and grandpa and aunts and cousins in Mexico that I’d like to send messages to,” said computer-savvy Enrique Reyes, a seventh-grader.

Compton Unified School District teacher Malinda Mongosa said she told her 31 fifth-grade pupils that they will be able to connect directly to NASA to research science projects when the library’s Internet computers are switched on.

Burglars broke in to her Mayo School classroom and stole an aging Apple computer that students used there, Mongosa said.

About 100 Los Angeles Unified School District schools had at least some classrooms wired Saturday, according to district officials.

Unlike March’s NetDay, when some administrators complained they were not given time to recruit volunteers to do the wiring, school officials staged several planning and training seminars. They said wiring efforts will continue.

The job is finished at the Wonderland campus, however.

“There’s tons of information on any subject you want on the Internet,” said volunteer Chris Fowler of West Hollywood, a technical manager for Ticketmaster. With a laugh Fowler added: “You can also order tickets on it.”

Wonderland Principal Judy Perez said a special parent-faculty technology committee plans to discuss ways of controlling pupils’ access to some of the Internet’s raunchy home pages.

Parents at Wonderland, meantime, were asked to contact the Federal Communications Commission to urge that free access to the Internet be provided schools.