DLT Awards - Alabama

2005 Grant Awards:

Talladega County Schools/Talladega County Board of Education
Talladega, AL
$488,030
Areas Served: Talladega County
Contact: Sallie T. Chastain
Telephone: 256-315-5184
Fax: 256-315-5180
Congressional District: AL-03

The project will establish a distance learning collaboration with 7 Talladega County Schools, the District Professional Development Center and the Central Alabama Community College. The project will use IP-based interactive videoconferencing to provide exceptional quality interactive distance learning capabilities to students and residents of Talladega County.

2004 Grant Awards:

Escambia County School District
Brewton, Alabama
$499,869
Areas served: Escambia County
Contact: Jerry L. Weeks, 251-867-9010
Congressional District(s): AL-01

The Escambia County School District has sponsored this project to establish the Escambia County Educational Consortium and to convert its LAN network to a WAN network. The consortium includes the school district, hospital, community college, and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and will be connecting to 16 end user sites. The grant funds will be used to purchase hub and end user distance learning equipment to benefit over 6,800 students and staff of Escambia County. The project will provide college courses, advance placement courses, elective studies, behavioral counseling, teacher continuing education, technology training, adult education, Indian culture education, science curriculum, and employment training.

2002 Grant Awards:

Choctaw County Board of Education; Butler, AL
$233,262 Grant
Area(s) Served: Choctaw County Towns of Lavaca, Lisman, Gilbertown, Butler and Silas
Contact: Charlotte Abston (205) 459 3031 x 238; Fax: (205) 459-3037
Congressional District(s): 7th

The Choctaw County Board of Education will use RUS funds to purchase and install interactive distance learning equipment in four county schools. Choctaw County's geographic isolation combined with long distance travel over secondary, unimproved roads makes it difficult for residents to obtain the types of services and opportunities available to most people in urban areas. Additionally, due to budget constraints, the school system has had great difficulty funding staff teaching positions for essential courses such as math, science, technology, art and music. The distance learning program will allow students in these small area schools to take these basic courses as well as college preparatory courses and GED courses. It will provide teaching professionals with opportunities to meet certification and continuing education requirements. Scalable T-1 service at the hub site will enable the system to interface with other ISDN and T-1 networks. The schools will carry information over fiber optic cable to the classroom. Approximately 2,200 rural students and faculty will benefit from this project.

Conecuh County School District; Evergreen, AL
$500,000
Area(s) Served: Counties of Conecuh and Wilcox
Contact: Ronnie Brogden (251) 578-1752; Fax: (251) 578-7061
Congressional District(s): Applicant 2nd / Project 2nd and 7th

The Conecuh School District will use RUS grant funds to establish distance learning labs in seven schools and enable two school districts to network with each other through the use of distance learning technology. The project will provide: increased course offerings to students; career and post-secondary education planning; professional development courses for teaching staff; community adult education; and, teleconferencing equipment and services for local businesses. This economically depressed area suffers from high unemployment and a lack of jobs with adequate wages. High drop out rates among high school students, teen pregnancy and low test scores also have an extremely negative impact on the communities in this service area. The project will increase student achievement by providing resources never before available to them. The variety of classes available to students and the quality of the instruction will broaden their horizons and show them elements of life outside of their own geographic area. This project will serve over 2,500 students and 323 faculty in two school districts.

2001 Grant Awards:

Lowndes County Board of Education; Hayneville, Alabama
$228,000 Grant
Area(s) Served: Lowndes County
Contact: Dr. John W. Covington; (334) 548-2131, Fax: (334) 548-2161
Congressional District(s): 7th.

The proposed project will connect Alabama State University's, Auburn University at Montgomery's, and Trenholm-Patterson State Technical College's high-speed distance learning systems (all operating over T1 telecommunications systems) in Montgomery. Also, it will connect the Intercampus Interactive Telecommunications System that provides a video link between the state's major colleges and universities. This project will provide students with dual enrollment options and advanced placement courses, teacher in-service classes for professional development and continuing education, and Head Start and day care teacher training and certification classes.

North-West Shoals Community College; Phil Campbell, Alabama
$273,887 Grant
Area(s) Served: Franklin County
Contact: Dr. James E. Wade; (256) 331-6211; Fax: (256) 331-5396
Congressional District: 4th

The project service area is located in the economically depressed southern Appalachian region. RUS grant funds will be used to connect four schools with each other and with North-West Shoals Community College and the Internet that will provide for the transmission distance education classes such as English as a second language; adult education; continuing education; developmental math and English; health and safety training; childcare training; and business training. The community will also receive much-needed training and certification for a minimum of 8 rural fire and police departments, paramedics, nurses and others. The end-user sites will be able to provide telemedicine and social services to all of Franklin County. In addition, diagnostic health screening will be provided for all students via telemedicine software programs.

2000 Grant Awards:

NORTHWEST ALABAMA MENTAL HEALTH CENTER
$121,578 Grant
Counties served: Fayette, Lamar, Marion, Walker and Winston
Contact: Mr. Jerry A. Lovett, (205) 387-0541; FAX: (205) 221-5911
4th Congressional District

The Northwest Alabama Mental Health Center is a fully certified five-County rural mental health center that provides comprehensive services for mentally ill, mentally retarded and substance abuse. This telemedicine project will demonstrate how the innovative application of merging technologies can lift rural mental health care systems to an equal footing with their urban counterparts. Medical services that would be offered by this proposed project would primarily be emergencies where the medical staff is in one part of the service area and the emergency is somewhere else. Both staffs will be able to have a patient's record faxed to them and, in turn, speak to the client and/or staff directly to make the proper decision of whether or not the client would have to be transported. Further medical benefits would involve commitment hearings to determine if a client needs to be hospitalized. A full range of professionals will be able to obtain needed continuing education without time lost for travel to distant sites, making them more available to their patients. Local hospitals and mental health professionals will have cost-effective continuing education available to their staffs, at less time and expense. The quality of care the patients receive will improve as continuing education is made available for their local medical communities. Rural communities will benefit from a more effective local hospital and health care system that is essential for economic and social stabilization.

ST. CLAIR COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
$99,301 Grant
Counties: St. Clair
Contact: Mrs. Marie Manning, (205) 594-7131; FAX: (205) 731-2259
3rd Congressional District

The St. Clair County Board of Education wants to provide a distance learning system that will enable the students at three small high schools to take advanced college preparatory classes that the board of education would not be able to provide due to cost constraints without RUS assistance. The proposed project consists of installing equipment for three interactive distance learning classrooms. One distance learning classroom will be installed in the St. Clair County high schools at Ashville, Odenville and Ragland. The system hub will be located at St. Clair County High School, in Odenville. The Board will lease fiber optic lines that will form Phase I of its distance learning network (Board incurring this expense). The students will not be able to take advantage of the advanced placement classes offered by Gadsden State Community College unless the proposed network is installed. In Phase II, distance learning classrooms will be installed in the new replacement high schools that will be built in Moody and Springville that will extend the network to all five St. Clair County high schools. Located in rapidly growing western St. Clair County, these two large high schools will be able to share their advanced classes with the three small rural high schools via the new distance learning network. This will provide the Board with a unique opportunity to share its investment in facilities and teachers with these small high schools located in the central and ea

TROY STATE UNIVERSITY
$350,000 Grant
Counties served: Coffee, Conecuh, Dale, and Macon
Contact: Dr. Angie Roling, (334) 670-3640; FAX: (334) 670-3815
2nd Congressional District

Troy State University (TSU) is a state-funded university located in the city of Troy, Alabama. The city's population is approximately 15,000, and is located in Pike County in southeastern Alabama which is predominantly a rural, agrarian area of Alabama. The total population of Pike County is approximately 28,900. TSU significantly lags behind both the state and nation in critical educational and economic indicators. TSU will use the grant funds to purchase and install distance learning equipment that will include videoconferencing equipment for full-motion, fully interactive classrooms in seven public high schools and, one system on the TSU Dothan Campus to link and provide distance learning programs and services. Additionally, the grant application includes funding for the acquisition of a mobile videoconferencing system to be placed at the J.B. Taylor Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory which is operated as a regional center by the State of Alabama Department of Agriculture. In short, this project will provide students and residents in the Counties of Coffee, Conecuh, Dale, Geneva, and Macon, with equal educational opportunities that are available to students who live in more affluent and urban areas. Without such opportunities, this area will remain an area of isolation, poverty, and low educational achievement.

1999 Awards:

Alabama A&M University; Normal, Alabama
$205,900 Grant
Counties Served: Bullock, Butler, Greene, Hale, Marengo, Sumter, and Perry
Contact Person: Dr. Taylor Byrd, (256) 858-4968: Fax (256) 851-5920

Alabama A&M University is a land-grant University. The Distance Instruction and Adult Learning (DIAL) project establishes a high performance information technology system that extends distance learning/telemedicine and end-user internet connection services to seven of America's poorest rural counties and also brings together for the first time, the technology of Distance Learning and a Micro-Venture Incubation Center. The goal of the project is to deliver Distance Learning, Telemedicine, on-line community empowerment consultation, and other vital community building resources, aimed towards reducing rural poverty and developing healthy educated and sustainable communities. Project DIAL end-user sites are located in the most depressed and bleak areas in the country. The proposed project will provide degree and non-degree courses and instructional programming to hundreds of students and teachers via interactive video and the Internet. The telemedicine system will enable hundreds of residents to receive health care services and hundreds of medical care workers to have access to on-line consultations and in-service training. The Micro-Venture Incubator center will focus on job creation, increasing income levels and welfare-to-work programs including cottage industry type neighborhood enterprises. The project will provide hundreds of beginning entrepreneurs with computer technology and Internet access, distance resources and opportunities to conduct business on the Internet. The project is formulated to demonstrate the impact of telecommunication in accelerating quality of life improvement, through education, research, and economic growth in poverty stricken communities.

Alabama Southern Community College; Monroeville, Alabama
$238,032 Grant
Counties Served: Choctaw, Clarke
Contact Person: Dr. John A. Johnson, (334) 575 3156: Ext. 223
Fax (334) 575 3156

Alabama Southern Community College (ASCC) is a public, two-year college whose service area includes all the exceptionally rural areas of Southwest Alabama. ASCC is proposing to develop a distance learning partnership initiative which will bring critically needed education and training services to this rural area. Through the linking of these sites, area residents will have immediate access to educational programs and services offered by ASCC as well as programs and services offered by senior colleges and universities link with Alabama’s Intercampus Interactive Telecommunication System which is linked to 30 plus Alabama colleges and universities.

Clay County Schools, Ashland, Alabama
$302,760 Grant
Counties Served: Clay, Hale, Greene, and Monroe
Contact Person: Marcia Wade, (256) 348-6432: Fax (256) 354-5415

Clay County School System is located in east central Alabama. Clay County is one of Alabama’s five most rural counties, with a population of 13,250 and a population density of 22.4 per square mile. The county’s six schools serve approximately 2,600 students, employing 161 certified employees. These schools are located in the exceptionally rural communities of Ashland, Lineville, Mellow Valley, and Millerville. Ten schools and four school systems will participate in the pilot of ALTAIR (Alabama’s Learning, Teaching, and Information Resource), which uses the World Wide Web to provide core academic courses to high school students. Clay County Schools proposes an innovative, educationally effective use of the technology that is most widely available in rural schools- computers and access to the Internet. Grant funds will allow the Clay County Schools to acquire instructional programming that will extend state allocations for instruction by sharing costs with other rural school systems. The core academic courses acquired with grant programming will fulfill Alabama Course of Study requirements and bear Alabama Department of Education approval. Like core academic courses taught in traditional classroom settings, any certified teacher on a public school payroll can teach them.

Troy State University, Troy, Alabama
$350,000 Grant
Counties Served: Barbour, Bullock, Butler, Crenshaw, Henry and Pike
Contact Person: Dr. Angela Roling, (334) 670-3640: FAX (334) 670-3815

Troy State proposes to install distance learning equipment that will include full-motion video conferencing and fully interactive classrooms in seven public high schools in Alabama. Through the Troy State hub site, the University will provide advanced high school courses, adult education courses, business and industry courses, and EMT certification courses.

1998 Awards:

Scottsboro-Jackson County Chamber of Commerce
$113,849 Grant, $183,001 Loan
Total: $296,850
Location: Scottsboro, Alabama
Area(s) served: Jackson, Jefferson and Madison
Contact Ann Kennamer
Phone Number: (256) 574-6359
Fax Number: (256)-574-3256
Congressional District: 5th.

Scottsboro-Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, a non-profit organization, plans to provide education and information to the residents and create a distance learning and telemedicine network to facilitate the exchange of voice, data and video. The project includes a hub site (Scottsboro-Jackson County Chamber of Commerce) with six end user sites. The Chamber of Commerce plans to provide teleconferencing educational services as well as consultations, diagnostic support, extended support group meetings, and other services.

IAE, Incorporated, (Indian American Education/International American Education Incorporated)
$143,209 Grant / $206,102 Loan
Total: $349,311
Location: Guntersville, Alabama
Area(s) served: Jackson and Washington, Alabama, Madera, California, and Jackson, Oregon
Contact Patricia Edwards de Ortega
Telephone Number: (256) 582-4595
Fax Number: (256) 571-9393
Congressional District(s): Applicant: Alabama, 4th, Project: Alabama, 4th and 1st, ,California 19th, Oregon, 2nd.

IAE, Incorporated ., a non-profit public corporation, plans to use RUS funds to install teleconferencing facilities at six sites in Alabama (3), California (1), and Oregon(2). The project will serve approximately 1,328 students from isolated disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. The project will utilize the internet and connect with T-1 equipment. Each site will be able to communicate with the other 5 sites and compatible units worldwide. IAE proposes to improve these students exposure to telecommunications technology, curricula, and communications skills. IAE also proposes to host training operations and instructional programming for the classroom teachers.

Talladega County Board of Education
$117,262 Grant / $232,738 Loan
Total: $350,000
Location: Talladega, Alabama
Area(s) served: Talladega
Contact Sallie Chastain
Telephone Number: (205) 362-6584
Fax Number: (205)-362-6504
Congressional District: 3rd.

Talladega County Schools serve rural and small town students in seven geographic communities with rural/urban population of 76,737. Talladega will provide a fiber optic network connecting seven rural high schools with the capability of transmitting full motion video/full duplex audio. RUS funds will be used to equip each site with a complete interactive teaching/learning environment capable of receiving and originating instructional programs. Talladega anticipates adding two community hospitals to its network to enhance the resources and diagnosis/treatment options of these two facilities for the county residents.

1996 Grant Award:

Carraway Methodist Health System
$285,000
Birmingham, Alabama
Contact Person: Ken Dover
Phone Number: 205-226-6138
FAX Number: 205-226-5680

The Carraway Methodist Health System is a not-for-profit major medical system serving the northwest corridor of Alabama. CMHS has committed to place a rural medical clinic staffed with a nurse practitioner in the town of Sulligent, Lamar County. By creating a widespread telemedicine and distance learning network, the Community Network for Education and Telemedicine (CNET), CMHS will address the most glaring of medical underservice needs of northwest Alabama. CMHS's vision is to link isolated counties using state-of-the-art medical services via telecommunications. An RUS grant award will provide CMHS with the funding to purchase the equipment necessary for this vision to come true. The function of the system is to provide for telemedicine delivery of medical services and teleconferencing for medical education. This system will be composed of the following: an interactive video-conferencing network linking rural hospitals and clinics to each other and to major medical centers and learning networks; a teleradiology network providing specialty diagnostic expertise for radiographs; and Internet and intranet access to on-line wellness community education, medical databases, pharmaceutical updates, e-mail, news groups and other information resources.

1995 Grant Award:

Carrolton

Linking medical clinics in four counties, the project will provide diagnostic services, opthalmoscopic and otoscopic exams, trauma care and pulmonary consultation. Also, it will provide teleradiology, video conferencing, and access to other networks.

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