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If the cotton fields surrounding Hunt High School in Wilson are a reminder of the community’s agricultural roots, the computers the 14 hundred students carry are a glimpse of the future.
Student Kyle Pittman says, “it lets me do research and lets me go outside the classroom.”
Thanks to a grant from the Golden Leaf Foundation along with private-public partnerships, the school loans each student a computer. Hunt High is one of 8 North Carolina schools where students click on class work.
Dan Gerlach, President of the Golden Leaf Foundation explains, “Golden Leaf was created to transform our tobacco dependent and cotton dependent economies into the modern age to compete globally. And there is not a doubt that students are going have to be competent with computers and have a good level of comfort with them in order to compete with parts of the United State and abroad.”
Adding computers to the education equation in Wilson equals a lot of enthusiasm among students and educators. Dr. Joe Davis is the Principal at Hunt High. Davis says, “I think it’s just been a chance for them to be able to get on some equal playing ground. But, to see things that they have never seen before, with technology and Internet access that we have here, it has been a wonderful thing.”
Along with policing the halls, Principal Davis and others keep a careful watch on the Internet sites students access. My Space, Facebook, and music sites are off limits. The 1:1 laptop program is a tool to unlock students’ potential and teach future job skills.
“I think that computers are not just for the handful of elite kids that do really well. [They’re] for every single child. If they want to be a farmer like their forbearer or work in a factory, health care or any other field, that’s going to make a difference. Computers are going to be a part of that some way, shape, or form,” adds Gerlach
The program is in its second year of the 3 year grant. School leaders are optimistic the seed money to buy the technology is money well spent.
Wilson County’s School Superintendent Dr. Larry Price explains, “We have already seen some improvement in school attendance, faculty attendance, student behavior, reduction in drop outs in the last year compared to the previous year is tremendous. We already have some indicators that it has had some impact.”
Perhaps the biggest impact is that students are recognizing they have the power to connect beyond the cotton fields of their rural community and they have opportunities to one day contribute to the local economy.
James Hunt High School
4559 Lamm Rd.
Wilson, NC 27893
Phone: 242-399-7930
Fax: 252-399-7897
Watch the NC Now Feature
An interview with Glenn Kleiman
An interview with Dr. Joseph Davis