Harrison County schools hand out laptops to students

HARRISON COUNTY, Miss. (WLOX) - Students in Harrison County are kicking off the spring semester with some new technology. The school district is handing out Dell laptops to thousands of students.

Students eagerly checked out their new laptops Wednesday at Three Rivers Elementary School.

”It’s like my very own laptop.” said Gavin Lewis.

Around 14,000 students in the Harrison County School District have their very own laptops.

It’s all part of the Mississippi Connects digital learning plan, which aims to get every student the technology they need to learn at school and at home.

The laptops will be especially beneficial should the district move to virtual learning or if a student has to be quarantined.

“We have our online platform, Schoology, that we use. Virtual classroom instruction is taking place through Microsoft Teams if they need it. So it’s just making sure that everyone has that access, and you don’t just have to be here in the school building to receive quality education,” said Jamie Boyer, instructional literacy coach at Three Rivers Elementary.

Many parents are excited.

“We only had one computer at home, so when we did virtual at the end of last year, I had to divide their time on when they were on the computer at home, so now they can do it at the same time versus it taking up all day,” said parent Ashley Banker.

Before the laptops got into the hands of students, students had to take a digital citizenship course.

“Making sure that students understand what a digital footprint is or how important it is to keep your password and username confidential. So teachers did lessons the week before we got out for Christmas so that students have that awareness and also we got that information out to parents,” Boyer said.

Schools in Harrison County will continue distributing the laptops through the rest of this week.

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