Ocean State schools and libraries are the beneficiaries of $1.38 million, earmarked to offset the costs of technology-related expenses in the coming school year.
The Schools and Libraries Division of the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC) has issued its latest batch of E-rate commitment letters for funding year 2002, and 93 Rhode Island schools, school districts and libraries qualified for special education rate discounts on telecommunications services. The discounts make recipients eligible to receive up to a 90 percent discount on Internet access, e-mail, telephone and similar services.
The Cooperating Libraries Automated Network (CLAN), which links together most of the state’s public libraries through an electronic interlibrary loan system, received $122,400 – the most of any of the awarded schools, districts or libraries in the state.
Virginia Moses, CLAN’s executive director, said that the award amounts to a 51 percent discount on Internet service, and will enable the organization to transfer all of its Internet service to Ocean State Higher education, Economic development and Administrative Network (OSHEAN) in the coming months. CLAN has been using a variety of vendors throughout the state.
"It’s critical to our day-to-day technology needs, both for our needs and the public’s," said Peter Bennett, assistant director of support services for the Providence Public Library. "If we didn’t get this, we’d have to go into our operations budget."
The $45,000 the Providence library was granted will help fund telephone and Internet service at its central library in downtown Providence and its nine neighborhood branches throughout the city. System-wide, the library has 75 public access computers where patrons can access the Internet.
Scott Burdick, technology director for the Chariho School District, said that $4,400 his school district received accounts for about a 40 percent discount on Internet access through the Rhode Island Network for Educational Technology (RINET).
The E-rate program is administered by the Schools and Libraries Division of the Universal Service Administration Company, a government agency established as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. USAC was created as a way to help finance rate discounts for schools and libraries that take advantage of new telecommunications technology.
The amount of funding allotted to each school is determined by the number of students enrolled in the National School Lunch Program and the school’s classification as urban or rural, according to Josh Brumm, who is a representative at USAC’s office in Lawrence, Kan.
Libraries must calculate the average USAC discounts received by the schools in their districts; the district application process is more complex, weighing its urban/rural status, total number of students, number enrolled in the NSLP and other factors.
The round of funding just announced is for the coming school year, starting July 1.
The yearly application process for USAC grants begins in October with a deadline in mid-January, Brumm said. Educators can file their applications online, requesting funding for specific technology-related services and providing USAC with estimated service costs.
Although he said the application process can get somewhat involved, Richard Clarkson, assistant director of the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, said he’s glad he took the time. The $22,000 UPAC granted to the school will provide an 80 percent discount rate for its telephone service.
Clarkson said that this is the first year USAC has accepted applicants for discounted telephone service, and with communications between the school, the school’s early intervention program and the State of Rhode Island Hearing Center – which tests 80,000 children each year – "we’ve got a lot of phone activity going on here. It’s going to be nice getting that phone discount this year."
The school will be billed by its telephone provider only for the amount owed after its discount, Clarkson said.
"It’s a good program and I would imagine that every school in Rhode Island hasn’t taken advantage of it," he said.
