$100,000 boost for Northwoods school district

COLEMAN - A video made by students and staff in Coleman in Marinette County is worth $100,000.

That's how much the school district is receiving in technology upgrades from interactive white boards to calculators.

The nationwide contest is through a division of Sharp Electronics. The small Coleman School District in rural Marinette County is holding its own.

"The school district is the center of the community," said Superintendent Brian Walters.

But Superintendent Brian Walters wishes he could do more. Despite some advancements over the years, tight budgets have made it difficult to update equipment district wide.

"We desperately need some of the technology. I still use an overhead projector in my class," said English teacher Sarah Thomas. "I mean we manage alright, but you have you see some of the amazing things you can do with technology. It was just kind of a far away dream."

However that dream became a reality with the help of the video produced by the district.

"We just took the song "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen and adapted it to make the song for educating and we kind of threw the idea out there to the principals and I said I have this idea and they said let's do it and we solicited the staff and students and they stepped up," Walters explained.

"The way they incorporated multiple people from their school really demonstrated to the panel just how much, how passionate they were," said Erica Calise, Sharp information and imaging company director of marketing.

What started as a promo for the school, turned into $100,000 worth of Sharp electronics. The superintendent says it goes a long way for a district with only an $80,000 technology budget.

While the award won't cover all the needs in the district, teachers stay it's a giant step forward.

"All of our students are familiar with technology at home and they use tablets and they come here and everything is so antiquated," Thomas said. "Maybe they'll be able to use some of this technology to become more interested in the subjects that they're learning about."

Company officials will be traveling all the way from New Jersey to Coleman for a special ceremony on January 30.

Coleman School District beat out nearly 550 applicants nationwide.