Flippin Elementary Prepares for a New Computer Lab   Flippin Elementary Principal Curt Bryant (left) joined staff, students, and a South Shore Foundation board member to mark the occasion of receiving $10,000 for a new fourth and fifth grade elementary computer lab to be ready for school next year. With Bryant are (in front) students Cori Blackwood (left) and Mayson Streul (right) and standing (from left) Beverly Gregory, computer lab aide, Shannon King, fourth grade teacher, and Judy Loving, a director of the South Shore Foundation.

A grant for $10,000, approved at the last South Shore Foundation board meeting in February, will allow Flippin fourth and fifth grades to come back to a new computer lab next school year. The school will provide $26,000 for the computer lab as the top priority in the technology department for next year.

Beverly Gregory, computer lab aide, and Shannon King, a fourth grade teacher, applied for the additional funds needed through South Shore Foundation, the charitable foundation of the Northern Arkansas Telephone Company (NATCO).

Approximately 184 students will be served by the 29 new computers and one new network printer. The computers used now are 19 years old, purchased in 1987. Over the past 19 years, they have served approximately 2,850 students, the grant applicants said.

New equipment in this computer lab also will be used for staff development, serving 56 teachers and aides yearly. Parents of Flippin elementary students will be invited to use the computer lab to enhance their own computer skills at family nights in the computer lab next fall and be better equipped to help their children with their homework.

With new computers, an entire class may do certain math and reading tests at one sitting, rather than only six students at a time presently. An entire class will also be able to view a single Web site together, with the teacher using a projector, and experience taking a virtual tour of historic places, such as the White House or NASA without leaving the classroom.