1 of 2
Rolling study hall
H.E. Bonner Elementary students Grace Caddell (in pink) and Arianna Watson can take advantage of their long commute home in a Wi-Fi-connected school bus to get a jump-start on their homework. Funding for the rolling study hall project was part of a $2.5 million grant by Google to support education in Berkeley County. Both the school and Google’s regional data center in Moncks Corner are served by Berkeley Electric Cooperative.
Photo by Josh P. Crotzer
2 of 2
Robots make learning fun
Berkeley Electric Cooperative gave the H.E. Bonner robotics team a jump-start with a $1,000 Bright Ideas education grant. Landon Warren (left) and Erin Powell (center) are part of the RoboFoxes team, supervised by media specialist Melissa Mills (far right).
Photo by Josh P. Crotzer
H.E. Bonner Elementary School in Moncks Corner is improving. The school’s principal, Melissa Willis, can see it. She can see it in the classrooms, in test scores and in the school’s annual report card, which jumped from “average” to “good” in 2018.
“We can see that all of our students are more engaged, and they are all improving,” says Willis. “We’re definitely the school to watch.”
They aren’t the only one. Over the last three years, Bonner Elementary and the rest of the Berkeley County School District (BCSD) have been beneficiaries of separate education initiatives sponsored by Google and Berkeley Electric Cooperative that have helped bridge the digital divide in rural communities and equip schools with modern teaching tools and innovative curricula.
“It’s made a tremendous impact on our students,” says Diane Driggers, chief information and technology officer for BCSD. “(These grants) open up so many opportunities for our students.”
Since building their massive data center near Moncks Corner in 2009, Google has tallied $2.4 billion in local capital investments. The tech giant also has donated over $2.5 million to education in Berkeley County. Among many other support projects, Google helped BCSD equip all their students with Chromebooks (a laptop running the company’s Chrome operating system) and partnered with local telecommunications company Home Telecom to provide free internet service to over 300 households in rural parts of Berkeley County. In 2016, BCSD became the second school system in the nation and the first in South Carolina to have Rolling Study Halls, Wi-Fi-enabled school buses for students with long commutes.
“Google’s culture is academic at its core,” explains Lilyn Hester, the company’s head of external affairs for the Southeast. “We’re committed to building interest in STEM education with a focus on computer science and engaging with local students.”
Berkeley Electric, the state’s largest electric cooperative, provides power to both the Google data center and Bonner Elementary. Their Bright Ideas education grant program supports innovative and effective curricula that cannot be covered by traditional school financing. Since 2016, Berkeley Electric Cooperative has provided over $52,000 in Bright Ideas grants to teachers and specialists in Berkeley County schools. Last year, Bonner Elementary media specialist Melissa Mills was awarded $1,000 for Lego robotics and STEM materials for the library.
“As a cooperative we are committed to the well-being of our communities,” says Leisa Stilley, Berkeley Electric’s manager of communications. “Technology- and STEM-focused careers are a critical part of the daily workings of the cooperative and to most of our local businesses. We are deeply involved in our schools to help grow our next employees and community leaders.”
Although Google and Berkeley Electric have not been direct collaborators in their support of education, they have coexisted in their focus toward rural communities. Because of their large footprint, Google data centers nationwide are built in rural areas. Once there, they find out the community’s needs and how to support them. They also find rural electric cooperatives already serving those communities.
“We look for strong cooperatives when we build a data center,” says Hester. “We like to look for areas where there are good folks and good partnerships. That’s why we love our relationship with our co-op.”