Fifty high school students, participating in a three-year computer science training academy at Laredo Community College, received computers they built to take home to further enhance their studies Dec. 12 at the LCC South campus.
The project is a collaboration involving LCC, the Laredo Independent School District and the Central/South Texas ENLACE Partnership at Texas State University-San Marcos.
Parents and family members, as well as project leaders from LCC, LISD and TSU, were present to recognize the students participating in the La Costa training academy.
“The selected students from Cigarroa High School began this past summer as eighth-graders attending a four-week summer institute where they learned about computer hardware from an LCC computer information systems instructor,” Dr. Jacinto Juarez, project director and LCC faculty member, said.
The computers they received recently at LCC South were units they dismantled and re-assembled as part of their learning experience at the summer institute.
Additionally, the students received one year of free Internet service, courtesy of LISD.
The Laredo academy is one of five statewide created to decrease Hispanic dropouts by working with partnering high schools to become Exemplary Texas Schools.
This fall, the local academy participants have attended an after-school program at Cigarroa High School and Saturday classes at the LCC main campus.
Project La Costa is an effort to address the low enrollment of the Hispanic community in Texas higher education institutions and particularly computer science career fields. The name La Costa implies a vocational vista for students.
Funding for the state project was made possible through a three-year $843,000 National Science Foundation grant that was awarded to Texas State.
Freddie Castro of LISD presents a computer to Cigarroa High School ninth-grader Lynda Lisette De Leon, as her mother, Rosalinda De Leon, looks on during the distribution of computer systems to 50 students in the La Costa Academy at LCC South Dec. 12.
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