By: Deborah Johnson Wood
An innovative program for at-risk Grand Rapids Public School students gives them hands-on experience rebuilding donated computers and learning computer applications that will help them succeed in school and employment. And, after completing the 7-week course, they can keep the computers.
Project Leaders Jeff Adams, Russell VanderMey, Mary Spoelhof, and Seth Beute developed Project “Access” for Public School Students (PAPSS) through the West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology. Geared for eighth thru twelfth graders, project leaders expect some 60 students will take the class this summer through The Loop program.
“We recognize the digital divide is real and is adversely affecting Grand Rapids Public School students,” says PAPSS coordinator Jeff Adams, owner of
PCmind.org. “By the time GRPS kids leave the eighth grade, their grasp of how to effectively use a computer is about one-half that of students in suburban school districts.”
Adams says recent news regarding school budget cuts prompted the group of four to step up and help.
“We recognized the need, and we recognized that as technologists in the business community we have the resources to help kids succeed,” he says. “I heard Bert Bleke (former GRPS superintendent) say once that if a child isn’t personally engaged in their education by the time they leave ninth grade, it’s almost too late to get them to graduation.”
Of the 80 at-risk students who have taken PAPSS since 2003, 97 percent are still in high school or have graduated.
“If they don’t succeed, our community won’t succeed,” Adams says.
Source: Jeff Adams, PCmind.org and Program “Access” for Public School Students
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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