Students and their Parents check out their Computers
before they take them home.
By Maria Torres
There are many students in Montgomery Blair High
School, who need computers, so the school is giving computers to the students
who need them. The school does not want to sell these computers. They just want
to give them for free as an important thing to do for all Blair students.
Montgomery Blair High School is offering these computers
because they want to help students be more successful. Many students work after
school and need to finish their projects at home. When they get free computers
they can work at home.
A lot of these computers are from some organizations
that give them to the school. One of these organizations is called Marriott. They
give computers to Blair High School because they are getting better computers
in their business.
According to Elliot Wolf, a student who prepares
the computers to give away, when they receive the computers from those organizations
they start erasing everything inside the computers. “Also we change the
hard drive and some times update the memory,” he said.
Lazaro Berrios is an ESOL student who received a
free computer from the school. “ My computer is working very well and I
think that it was a good decision to get the computer because it helps me a lot,”
he said. “For example, I can do my homework at home, especially NSL government.
I can get some ideas from the Internet if I have any questions,” he added.
But some students are having problems because they cannot get the computers to
work. Sonto Mukhtar and her brother Abdi Mukhtar are both in 10th grade. “The
reason we wanted the free computer is because we don’t have to stay after
school to do our homework. But we got one from school and it is not working,”
they said. They tried many times to connect the computers so it would work but
it doesn’t work.
The computers come with software that gives free
Internet connections but the software of these computers is different from the
computers at school. “It means that the students need to learn more about
how to use them and sometimes get help from other teachers,” Elliot Wolf
said.
According to Mr. Bellino an ESOL teacher who helps
the students to get the computers, “Sometimes, the problem is not that the
computers do not work. The problem is that the students are not familiar with
the software,” he said. “I went to one family to help them to connect
the computer to the Internet. But even with my help, we had trouble with the free
Internet software company.”
According to Anne Wisniewski, the Blair staff member
who is in charge of the free computer program. “The computers are used,
but they are not bad computers. If the student is complaining about a computer
that is not working, we can give them a better one. We can give them a new mouse
if they need it, a new monitor if they need it. We can do something about it to
help the students, but they shouldn’t throw it away,” she said.
