With free computers, CHCCS helps families connect

While some parents might feel that the internet distracts their children from school work, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools families attending Saturday’s computer distribution said they feel the connection between learning and technology is decidedly positive.

CHCCS’s Community Connection program, which provides selected students and their families with a computer and internet access, distributed 50 desktop computers Saturday morning to district families who could otherwise not afford them.

The event, held at the district’s headquarters at Lincoln Center, offered qualifying families the computers and one year of internet access, free of charge.

“If you’re not connected to the internet, having a computer is just like giving somebody a paper weight,” said Darren Bell, the manager of Community Connection.

While parents met with volunteers to learn the basics of computer operation and read over sheets of internet safety tips, kids got to explore their schools’ websites and educational games at stations set up around the center.

Bell said the program, started in 2008 and funded through the district’s budget for at-risk students, has distributed over 500 computers since its inception. A Durham nonprofit organization, Kramden Institute Inc., refurbishes donated computers and sends them along to Community Connection, which currently serves between 125 and 140 families in the district.

James Henderson, the parent of an eighth grader at Smith Middle School, said he applied to the program because he’s unable to afford the computer his son needs to complete his schoolwork.

“(I’m) financially strapped because I’m a single parent — just one income in the household,” Henderson said as he filled out the paperwork for his family’s new computer.

He said his son has developed a habit of missing assignments, and computer access will help him as a parent keep in touch with his son’s teachers.

“Hopefully it’ll help him more with the school work and allow me to communicate with the school system better.”

Adamari Torres, a fourth grader at Mary Scroggs Elementary School who attended the event with her mother, said she was excited to have a computer at home.

“I’m here today to get a computer,” she said. “If I don’t understand a lesson, I could go to the website and learn.”

Bell said with the program, CHCCS administrators are seeking to address socioeconomic gaps throughout the community.

“We’re blessed in Chapel Hill to have a lot of families that are very economically advantaged, but we still have a lot of families that are disadvantaged,” he said.

Bell said the program has grown in recent years to offer computer training to district families and maintain computer labs in spaces such as the Hargraves Community Center in Chapel Hill’s Northside neighborhood.

He said he thinks a community does the best job of educating its children when it recognizes learning happens outside of the classroom, a fact that guides Community Connection’s efforts to expand computer access.

“We see a lot of difference, because of the fact that education is not a process that is from 7:00 until 3:00 while the kid’s in the classroom,” he said. “We’re actually finding that a lot of kids are being able to do their homework, are able to actually learn more, to extend their learning through opportunities.”