The
Virginia
Student
Training
and
Refurbishing
(VA
STAR)
program
recently
teamed
up
with
Dr.
Robert
Melvin
and
Smart
Kids
VA
to
distribute
laptops
to
PWCS
students
for
use
in
distance
learning.
Smart
Kids
VA
is
a
local
program
that
works
with
a
community
of
industry
professionals
to
coach
students
in
career
readiness
programs.
VA
STAR
provided
100
laptops
to
Smart
Kids
VA,
and
their
team
of
students
cleaned
up
the
computers,
loaded
them
with
Windows
10
and
Microsoft
Office,
and
activated
them
so
students
could
simply
turn
them
on
and
get
to
work.VA STAR received the laptops back from Smart Kids VA and to date, 62 of the 100 laptops have been distributed to students across the County.
Additionally, VA STAR launched a program, "10 laptops in 10 days at 10 schools," to distribute laptops throughout the state. The program covers areas from Lynchburg to Northumberland County, and as far north as Clark County. The original plan was to distribute laptops directly to students, however, with social distancing requirements, computers were distributed to schools; who in turn, distributed to their students.
During the school closure, VA STAR continued to work to get as many computers to students. Working from home, the team was able to prepare over 300 laptops for PWCS Information Technology Services to distribute to students. VA STAR has an additional 400 laptops ready to go out, if and when they are needed. While the school closure and social distancing have impacted their ability to obtain equipment to rebuild, VA STAR continues to work and prepare as much equipment as possible.