7th-graders set to use laptops
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VASSALBORO — Seventh-graders will have the opportunity to take laptop computers home after they and their parents get instruction on how to use them.
Vassalboro Community School Principal Kevin Michaud told the School Committee Monday night that 70 computers arrived that day. Teachers received their laptops earlier, and most of them have attended training sessions, he said.
The computers belong to the school, not to the students, who have the use of them this year, Michaud said. However, he thinks students should be allowed to take the computers home to maximize their use and to achieve Gov. Angus King's goal of closing the gap between families that can afford computers and those that can't.
To make home use work, Michaud said, students will receive instruction and then parents will be given a three-hour course and asked to sign an agreement accepting responsibility for them. He expects not all students will take computers home — some parents may refuse the responsibility — and the school will reserve the right to revoke home-use privilege if a computer is misused or abused.
In other matters, Michaud and head custodian Paul Gilbert gave the School Committee a tour of the school. They pointed out the new carpets, repainted hallways and especially the mural covering one wall of the cafeteria.
Art teacher Susan Orchard and educational technician Suzanne Griffiths are doing the mural. Michaud said the two are charging less than the estimate he received to repaint the walls a solid color.
School Committee members on Monday also accepted School Union 52 Business Manager Gary Smith's recommendation to cover the $26,000 cut in 2002-03 state funds with money brought forward from the 2001-02 budget.
The revised, though still unaudited, balance brought forward is more than $222,000, Smith said. It is composed of more than $151,000 saved through last year's spending freeze and more than $71,000 in unanticipated revenue (mostly from a larger-than-expected balance brought forward from the previous year).