P&G Awards SMART Boards to Area Schools

Four area schools have received a new tool for the classroom

Rob Daniel • Iowa City Press-Citizen

Willowwind School, the Regina Inter-Catholic Education Center and Van Allen and Hills elementaries were among the 126 schools in six states to be awarded Smart Boards in November and December in a contest sponsored by Hy-Vee and Procter & Gamble. The boards retail for about $1,400, according to Van Allen Elementary PTO treasurer Lisa Carlson, and are interactive electronic white boards which can plugged into computers that can download graphics and other information for students and teachers to write over, along with other features.

"It's nice that it has a memory," said Nicole Engelbart, director of recruitment and development at Willowwind. "You don't have markers that will run out. It's very reusable."

To enter the contest, parents at the schools had to buy Procter & Gamble products such as shampoo and detergent at Hy-Vee between Sept. 1 and Oct. 31, according to the contest Web site. For every $20 of the products purchased, they earned 100 "SMART points" to donate to the school of their choice. Parents then could take the promotional code printed on their receipt and enter it at the contest Web site to donate them to their school, the Web site said.

For Van Allen Elementary parents, it was a way to earn some extra classroom materials, Carlson.  "We let parents know this is a way we could win a board," she said. "It was quite a multi-step thing for parents to do."

So far, the boards have been a hit at the schools. Willowwind students got to write their names on the boards to test out the effects when they received their board Nov. 17, Engelbart said.

At Van Allen, Carlson said students learned about the software that allows them to touch the board and manipulate it with their finger.  "It takes a lot of training," Carlson said. "It's incredible. We're hoping to purchase 14 of them next year."