The Reiley Elementary Student Technology Leadership Program won first place at the state “Help Desk/Support” challenge on April 29.
The fifth graders and their coaches were honored at the Alexandria City Council meeting on May 4 for their achievement. This was the first year the program was held and was created for students to learn how to troubleshoot technology issues and help their fellow students.
According to Alexandria Mayor Andy Schabell, roughly 17,000 kids from across the state competed at the event, and the students from Reiley Elementary accepted their first-place win at Rupp Arena in Lexington in front of about 20,000 people.
“The city of Alexandria hereby proclaims gratitude and pride for the entire community—and then here’s your name—for his participation and contribution to the success of the team,” Schabell read from the city proclamation.
Schabell, whose son was a part of the team, said the kids had to get up an hour before school to get there by 7:30 a.m. before other students arrived to work in the program several times a month.
One of the team’s coaches and Reiley Elementary School Technology Coordinator, Jennifer Gamble, said the boys learn about technology, computers, and laptops that students utilize daily at school.
Gamble said the kids had been a help to the staff when configuring technology issues across the school.
“Taking these young students and developing them into potential help desk support systems for us is a tremendous help because there’s one person or two people in the building, but they’re doing other things,” Gamble said. “So, with their help, they can get it to us faster. They can try to troubleshoot it. Do it themselves.”
She said this is also a skill they can bring with them to Campbell County Middle School.
“At the middle school, they don’t have too many kids that are interested in technology support systems there,” Gamble said. “Our task this year was trying to gauge interest in the fifth graders, so when they go to the middle school, they can take what they’ve learned at the elementary school and apply it there as well.”
Reiley Elementary Student Technology Leadership Coach Micole Johnson said the school spoke with the middle and high schools about their needs and got the idea to start the program.
“Since COVID-19, they had said that they had seen a decline in students wanting to help with their tech support teams,” Johnson said. “Our idea was if we could get our younger kids interested, then it would feed into the middle and high school.”
Johnson said the fifth graders will now help to train the fourth graders in technology support to prepare them for their fifth-grade year.
