District turns bus into classroom

Project's Internet hookups let Sheridan kids ride and study

By Cynthia Howell

Photo by Karen E. Segrave

Shayna Tanner, an eighth-grader at Sheridan Middle School, does homework with her laptop while riding the bus to her home in Grapevine.

ADVERSTISMENT

LITTLE ROCK — Sheridan School District bus No. 46 sported a jaunty Christmas wreath on its front grille as driver Vera Launius steered the growling yellow monster over the narrow, curvy, patched and often unpaved roads of southeast Grant County.

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Aspirnaut Initiative

The school bus - a mobile virtual classroom - is a key component of the new "Aspirnaut Initiative."

Inside the bus, about 30 students - from the youngest of elementary pupils to high schoolers - were settled in for a bus ride of up to 90 minutes ending on Garden Seed Road near the unincorporated community of Grapevine.

A typical rural Arkansas school bus ride?

No. Not anymore.

For more information see today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Subscribers can read the story here on ArkansasOnline.