Great Idea of the Week

Highlandville students receive computers from unlikely source

By: Emily Hoffman, staff writer emilyh@cpimo.com

12/12/2007

When Stefanie Reubell's Highlandville Elementary Discovery class needed new computers for class work, help came from an unlikely source-the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield.

"My first year here, I started writing letters and e-mails and making phone calls to various places requesting their used computers for my gifted classroom," Reubell said. "I wrote to the Federal Medical Prison in Springfield sometime at the beginning of last year. Then a couple of months ago, they called to ask if I still needed computers for my classroom."

Reubell said the idea to write to the prison came from her need to be more "creative" in obtaining the things she needed in her classroom.

"I have a wonderful, generous school district that really takes care of our kiddos, but there are some things on my 'teacher's wish list' that I have to be more creative about getting," she said. "Most teachers, especially in rural school districts, have to know how to write grants and where to find good but inexpensive supplies and tools. In this case, I wrote to a prison."

Reubell's creative efforts paid off when the elementary received more than 14 computers from the prison.

"They sent 14 or 15 computers as well as two massive servers, a ton of software and network cards and probably 30 or 40 brand-new monitors," Reubell said. "It was so nice that we had a lot of overflow. I just kept six useable ones for my classroom, and I kept a few extras in my room that are ones we're still working on getting installed and booted. I thought the kids could learn some things about the inner workings of a computer and try to solve the problems."

"When most people find out the federal prison donated the computers, they do a double-take," she said. "I realize a prison plus a school is an unusual 'pairing.' I suppose some would say that in investing in a school, the prison was taking extra steps to make sure fewer people end up there by staying here."

Reubell said the students also use the computers for blogging, learning other languages, researching projects, improving keyboarding, creating spreadsheets, developing Web sites and even programming.

Reubell says she and the school will never forget the generosity the prison showed.

"We were so appreciative of their big heartedness," she said. "I have future plans to involve the students in digital creation as well as communications with other online classrooms as a kind of 21st century pen-pal program. And this is just the first year we've had computers, imagine how much more we will think of and do as the years go on."