School District Gets $3-Million Grant
The city’s school district has received a $3-million grant to upgrade computer technology at each district campus and supplement educational programs.
About $2 million of the Irvine Co. grant, which was announced Tuesday, will be used for computer upgrades, Irvine Unified School District officials said. The rest will be used to enhance the district’s fine arts, health education and science programs.
District Supt. Patricia Clark White said the grant will be used to purchase new computers, install CD-ROM towers at each school site, set up faster Internet access, purchase software and provide teacher training.
“We anticipate that these funds will enable us to upgrade the quality, memory and performance of existing computer systems in our computer technology learning centers, and to create new centers,” White said.
“Combined with other revenue sources, we may well be able to reach our ambitious goal of a 10-to-1 ratio of students to each computer.”
Irvine Co. officials said the company wants to support technology in the district, as well as some programs that have suffered in recent years under tight budgets.
“Science, fine arts and health education are essential to well-rounded educations, and [we believe] a special effort is justified to encourage them . . . in the face of budgetary restraints,” Irvine Co. spokesman Joe Davis said.
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