Best Buy Grant Means Much Needed Technology For Edith Cavell School

A tech grant from Best Buy will mean the purchase of 25 new iPads for Edith Cavell School.   This will allow them to support their students in class or at home.

Principal Donna Arseneault says, “Of our 300 students we have here in Kindergarten to grade 8, a third have no access to technology at home. So should we have to revert to distance learning again, we need to provide homes with technology that we have here in the school.”

When she received the news this week, about the $10, 000 tech grant, she was beyond excited.

“When you think that a third of our students body don’t have access to technology when they leave our building because at home they just don’t have it. We think of ourselves as adults when we were thrown into working from home when the pandemic started and how big of a learning curve that was. With our children not having access, they are being left behind,” Arseneault says.

She adds, use of these new iPads in class, will also enable them to teach children the technology, so they understand how to use it.

“if we are not using the technology daily here at school, then when we revert to distancing learning and learning from home, they won’t know how to access the technology at that point in time, so it is important that we are using it each day at school,” Arseneault says.

Parents sign a contract in advance, and if they have to go to distance learning again, the iPads are sanitized and slipped into the bookbags of the students who need them.

“We need for education to be more equitable. We want our children , once they reach high school, to feel at competent and confident as any other child in the City of Moncton,” Arseneault says.

She is still awaiting the arrival of the iPads, but Arseneault says they expect to have some of them in their hands by the end of the week.

Best Buy Canada selected 13 elementary and secondary schools from more than 730 applications, to receive funding for tech-based curriculums.

This is a part of the Best Buy School Tech grant program.  Through these grants, students are able to access the latest technology to help keep them motivated and focused as they move towards post-secondary education.