Youngstown schools seek $1.7M in tech equipment

By Harold Gwin

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school district would like to get nearly $1.7 million worth of technology and Internet services next school year for just $316,131.

The board of education voted Tuesday to ask the federal Universal Service Fund to pick up $1,506,000 of the expense.

The fund, more commonly known as E-Rate, was created by the federal government to help underwrite the cost of telecommunication and Internet access services to schools and libraries across the country.

The program is run through the Federal Communications Commission, which gets the subsidy money from a universal service fee charged to companies that provide interstate or international telecommunications services. Between 20 percent and 90 percent of the cost is covered, depending on a school’s poverty level.

In Youngstown’s case, the poverty level rating is high enough to warrant 90 percent coverage.

The district’s application for Internet and technology services includes the new Volney Rogers and Wilson middle schools now under construction, with the electronics for both coming in at a total of about $420,000.

Other services for which the district is seeking a subsidy include districtwide e-mail, Internet, data and voice electronics programs and basic network maintenance costs.

Youngstown has been very successful in securing E-Rate assistance in the past, receiving more than $15 million in support since the program began in 1998.

In other action Tuesday night, the board authorized spending $111,800 to remove asbestos from the old Jackson Elementary School and spending $11,875 to send five of its seven members to the National School Boards Association conference and exposition in San Diego in April.

The Jackson building, located on Windsor Avenue, is slated to be razed as part of a $190 million school rebuilding program now under way in the district. The state is picking up 80 percent of the demolition expense.

The building last temporarily housed the Paul C. Bunn Elementary School, which moved into a new building on Sequoya Drive this fall.

Board members Lock P. Beachum Sr., Anthony Catale, Richard Atkinson, Dominic Modarelli and Michael Murphy plan to attend the five-day NSBA event in San Diego at a cost of $2,375 each.

Beachum is currently vice chairman of the NSBA’s Council of Urban Boards of Education and will advance to the position of chairman during the conference.

Modarelli said the trip is an educational process where people from Youngstown can get first-hand information on how other urban districts are dealing with problems similar to those faced here.

“Networking,” is the word Catale used to describe the reason for attending. “This is our one chance a year to network with school boards across the country.”

“We need to learn all we can about urban districts,” Murphy said, explaining that it’s an opportunity to get different ideas.

Youngstown picked up a new method of evaluating its superintendent at the last conference, Atkinson noted.

gwin@vindy.com