Digital Divide

Eastwood High School is a grade 9-12 institution with a student population of approximately 2,200 students. The student population is mainly from lower-middle class backgrounds, with approximately 75% of the students from Hispanic descent. The school is located in El Paso Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border. This area has been designated as the El Paso Texas Enterprise Zone. To quality as an Enterprise Zone in Texas, an area must be “economically distressed” and have “experienced poverty, chronic unemployment, or abandonment of property.” Eastwood High School serves many students from this zone.

Eastwood High School became an official Cisco Networking Academy in August 2000. The goal of the Academy at Eastwood High is to develop local technology skills and help students contribute to the development of El Paso. Average enrollment during a semester is more than 60 students.

In May 2002, Eastwood High School was awarded an Adtran Emulation Kit through the Cisco Networking Academy Ecosystem Donations Program. Eastwood High School was chosen because of its work with undersserved students from the El Paso Enterprise Zone and because of the excellent instruction is provides to its students. The Adtran equipment has been an important addition to the Networking Academy at Eastwood High, primarily used for hands-on training in CCNA3 and CCNA4 courses. As stated by Jorge Montelongo, the Technology Coordinator at Eastwood High School and the Director of the school’s Cisco Academy,

“The opportunity to enhance the Cisco curriculum with the the Adtran would have been impossible to realize without the donation… The donation of the Adtran WAN simulator has allowed me to simulate a WAN environment that mirrors real world situations. Students in our academy would not have had the "hands on " opportunity to completee labs that required this equipment. We are now able to recruit students to our classed who would have otherwise had to wait until after graduation to attend a technical or community college to receive this training.. Because of this we are also able to offer our CCNA courses for dual credit with El Paso College. This provides students an opportunity to receive college credit (up to six hours) for free.”

By increasing enrollment and ehancing student experience, the Adtran Emulation Kit has made a tremendous impact in the El Paso school district.