Over the last six years, the Social Security Administration has donated 12,306 computers to Maryland public schools through the State Department of Education?s Phoenix Project.
Tuesday morning at Baltimore?s William S. Baer School, classrooms filled by children with the greatest of needs received 25 refurbished laptops and large-screen monitors that will help the students with a range of learning, speech and language skills.
Maryland schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick began her career in 1961 at William Baer, teaching deaf students next to the multipurpose cafeteria where SSA Deputy Commissioner for Human Services Reginald Wells presented the computers to principal Patrick Crouse.
“These computers will be a window to the world for the children here,” Grasmick said.
Crouse said 75 percent to 80 percent of the children, typically aged 3 to 14, have significant speech and language issues. Some are unable to communicate verbally at all.
“First and foremost, these computers will give a voice to the voiceless,” Crouse said. “They?ll also allow teachers to access voluntary state curriculum, and they?ll help our nondisabled boys and girls, 3, 4 and 5 years old.”
Barry Feinstein, a retired speech pathologist who has been at the school for 30 years and still volunteers there, and staff speech pathologists Shelly Morris, Shoshana Kruger and Ariella Grunhut said the institution has been getting by with just three fully functional computer carts. Their hope is that the donation will lead to permanent computer carts with adaptive hardware and programming software in each of the school?s 25 classrooms.
Large-screen projected computer applications can aid pre-literate students in vocabulary and reading, and they can often begin to learn to write using symbols, Feinstein said. For kids who can?t go play in the snow, they can learn winter words like scarf or mittens, and build snowmen using computer graphics.
“We have a lot of attention deficit disorder and autistic kids, too, and the computers are a great tool for holding kids? interest,” Feinstein said.
Graham Kastendike, president of William S. Baer Partnership Board, a private-public cooperative effort, said the computer donation will enable the board to help buy necessary adaptive computer technology for students who cannot not use a traditional keyboards, for example, or are hearing or visually impaired.
The school, founded in 1933 for students with polio, serves 220 children with multiple challenges, including orthopedic disabilities, developmentally delayed health impairments, mental disabilities and other fragile medical conditions. The school employs a dozen nurses and 22 children are tube-fed every day at the school.
The Phoenix Project
The Phoenix Project?s mission is to provide computers to public schools, as well as community groups and individuals in need and involved in Maryland education. The project is a partnership between the MSDE, the Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition and its East Baltimore Technology Resource Center, the Vista Volunteers of America, the Social Security Administration and the National Cristina Foundation.
