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Butte Falls school will go online over break School staff plans to set up computers By VICKI GUARINO BUTTE FALLS -- High school staff will be busy over the Christmas holiday opening the school to the Internet. Students and the community will gain from the project to set up a 16-computer lab in the school library -- the district's first Internet access for students. During off hours, the lab will be open to the public, says Superintendent Harvey Boyle. The joint school-community effort is being financed by $16,000 in grants and donation of computers from Bear Creek Corp. Cables are to be strung and computers shuffled into the library starting next week. School officials hope the work will be finished by the time classes resume Jan. 4, says business teacher Dianne Gorman, who has been a leader in the project. The new computer center will give Butte Falls' 70 high school students their first access in school to the Internet. Eventually, district officials hope to link the service to the elementary school and its 175 students. Internet access in the district now is limited to single computers in each school that are restricted to administrative use, says Gorman. Students who don't have a computer at home have to go to the public library, which has just one computer with Internet access. "We've got to get Internet access for the kids or they are going to fall way behind the times," says Boyle. Gorman says the project is an important expansion of students' access to information. "It means they can learn a lot more about the world outside of Butte Falls," Gorman says. Funds for the project include a $5,000 grant from the Oregon Communities Foundation -- an organization that does not ordinarily contribute to school projects. Gorman says she applied for the grant because of the community access element of the project. A survey of every home in the district last year showed strong support for a computer lab that would be open to the public. Many households in the district lack Internet access. Other residents said they would use the school lab to learn more about their home computer systems. "There was overwhelming response that people would use the center," says Gorman. The project consists mostly of installing telephone lines and other auxiliary equipment. The district already owns plenty of computers, thanks in large part to a donation of 16 computers last summer from Bear Creek Corp. With the inventory of equipment already owned by the district, says Boyle, "We ended up with a lab in every classroom -- four or five computers in every classroom." Technology students have been upgrading the machines for student use. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA