The Newton College and Career Academy is initiating a new program that will help low-income middle-school students get access to a desktop computer.

NCCA President Clad Walker and Newton County School System Technology Director Gary Shattuck gave a presentation to the Newton County School Board Tuesday night about the new initiative.

The idea for the program, called Desktops 4 Ed, was developed about a year ago, says Shattuck.

“Basically our plan is to take surplus computers and have the students of the Career Academy refurbish them as part of the computer repair pathway, and then use those computers to distribute to (low-income students),” he said.

How to get the desktop

Any Newton County middle school student that receives free or reduced lunch benefits in school will be eligible for the program.

There’s plans to get a link setup on the NCCA website that will allow students to access the application which determines eligibility.

When a student is selected, a one-time processing fee of $25 will be required. Along with that, the student will have to attend a one-hour training session that will teach them about the hardware and software components.

“Not only do we need to be able to give them the computers but give them the resources to know how to use that computer,” said Walker. “This will all be done by our (NCCA) students. Our students are going to develop three different training sessions in that hour.

Middle-school students were chosen because they would get the most bang for the buck, says Walker.

“If you do it for a high school student, depending on what grade they’re in, they may only be in the system for a year. If you do it for a middle school student, regardless of what grade they’re in, they’ll still have at least four years to reap the benefits,” he said.

Initiation of the initiative

The first distribution of computers will be held by lottery Dec. 2. A total of 50 refurbished desktops will be evenly distributed to eligible students among the five middle schools in Newton County.

Walker stated that as NCCA pathway students become more familiar with the process of resurrecting these old desktops, they could have more refurbished computers to offer in the spring of 2015.

“The minimum (is) going to be 50 come spring, but our goal is to get more than that,” he said.

About half of the pathway class is working on getting computers ready for the initial rollout.

With that first collection of $25, Walker plans on using some of those funds to pay students to stay after school to get more desktops refurbished.

“Right now, we’re doing it solely through classes,” Walker said during the meeting.

Reaction of the School Board

After hearing the presentation by Walker and Shattuck, Chairwoman Shakila Henderson-Baker didn’t hide her excitement about the program.

“Very good,” she said. “This is awesome.”

District 4 Board Member Almond Turner recommended that the NCSS look into partnering with Charter Communications to provide internet service for those in the program.

Shattuck said he’ll look into it.

“They had a $9.95 internet service for families if they could prove they were getting some kind of government assistance,” said Shattuck. “We’ll try to follow up and see if that program is still operational.”

The power of the desktops

The refurbished desktops will be running on a Microsoft Vista operating system with an Intel Core 2 Duo processing chip, which is at the lower end of the spectrum of processing chips developed by Intel.

It comes with two gigabytes of RAM and 80 gigabytes of hard drive space, which determines how much information you can save on the computer.

It’ll come equipped with a LCD monitor, tower, keyboard, mouse and all working cables. If the computer stops working within the first seven days, students will have one week to return it for a replacement tower.