With a new school year just around the corner, one Hazleton Area School received some learning essentials this morning.
Valley Elementary/Middle School is now home to new laptops, cleaning, and school supplies, all thanks to the Amazon corporation.
“I’m from the local Hazleton warehouse and we’re here today to donate 125 laptops to Hazleton Area School District as well as back-to-school supplies for our local teachers” says Mariah Grabinski, Amazon Human Resources Manager.
The Hazleton Area School District has had a partnership with Amazon for a little over five years now, to which Amazon has helped with their Junior/Senior Trunk or Treat, and even donated a dance floor for the Senior prom.
Teachers, staff members, students, and Amazon employees all showed up today.
The district plans on distributing the laptops for the upcoming school year. For students’ kindergarten through second grade, the district will be setting up “learning stations” where they can be utilized.
In addition to students, the laptops will be utilized by paraprofessionals who will use them for testing and other student support services.
Current laptops the school utilizes will be transferred to other schools throughout the district to help more families or even keep them as backups.
“It helps them tremendously it gives them the opportunity to keep everybody on an equal playing field” said Dr. Brian Uplinger, Superintendent of the Hazleton Area School District.
Dr. Uplinger says that purchasing a laptop pre-pandemic cost around $140, but now they cost about $350, so the donation allows the district to offset that cost and put the money towards other programs.
Teachers will also now be able to take a laptop home.
“They can take them home and utilize them as they need to do their classwork and things of that nature. So yeah, it’s really going to benefit" says Uplinger.
Since the pandemic, the Hazleton Area School District has had the opportunity to institute a 1:1 plan meaning that each student has a laptop they can take home to do their schoolwork. This donation today allows them to continue with that program for years to come.