Excitement is sky high these days for students at Fairfax High School in Laveen, Arizona. They just received a drone with an HD camera on board.
Despite school budget cuts, teacher Cat Barrett found another way to deliver this technology — in the form of the drone and two iPads — to students. And this is just the beginning.
“I would love for my kids to all have their own iPads because in college thats what they are going to be using,” Barrett says.
Money to buy the iPads and drone was not there due to school budget cuts. So, Barrett, who teaches 9th and 11th graders, went searching for alternatives. “We have to find alternatives. Those corporations out there are the ones taking our children into those fields. So how are we going to get them there?”
One way, Barrett found, is a website called donorschoose.org She filled out an online request for a drone, and hoped a generous donor would see it. “The College National Football Association found ours, and finished out the remainder that we needed for the drone. We just all melted in the room.”
She describes it as an “awesome” moment.
Barrett, who has been teaching for 11 years, says she will never stop fighting for her students. “This is why I went into teaching.”
Even when districts are starving for funding and school budget cuts continue, teachers like Cat Barrett are determined to find solutions and help her students find success.
