The MOUSE Squad Supports and Rescues IT in City Schools

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"Here They Come, To Save the Day..."
The MOUSE Squad Supports and Rescues IT in City Schools

By Tech News Staff Writer

In 1997, entrepreneur Andrew Rasiej walked into a high school in the Manhattan neighborhood in which he worked and was astonished to see students typing away on outdated electric typewriters. Immediately recognizing an opportunity to make an impact in his community, he called on some Silicon Alley contacts. In no time at all, he had assembled a group to wire the school for Internet access. But he didn't stop there.

Three months later Rasiej had amassed an army of 1,500 motivated technology volunteers, ready to offer their services to New York City public schools.

In order to coordinate their efforts, he created a registration database matching his volunteers' varied skills with schools needing particular assistance. This database marked the birth of MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education), an organization that today serves 200,000 students and almost 3,000 staff in New York City public schools.

MOUSE Squad has saved New York City's public schools hundreds of thousands of dollars in tech support costs.

Building a Better Mousetrap
MOUSE Squad, the organization's flagship program, evolved out of the original volunteer program. "In the schools," Rasiej explains, "there were lots of resources going into buying hardware and bandwidth, and even professional development…but nobody was focusing on tech support." MOUSE Squad was formed to close the gap created by funding sophisticated technology without funding maintenance by training middle and high school students to perform tech support within their schools.

MOUSE Squad exposes students to the world of technology while saving the city money on tech support fees at a time when budgets are shrinking drastically. This school year alone, MOUSE Squad has saved the city over $400,000.

Monetary savings are just one of the positive byproducts of MOUSE Squad. Carole Wacey, MOUSE's Executive Director, emphasizes that "we also want people to focus on the other, really positive benefits of the program." As an example, she cites "soft" skills such as the development of leadership ability, as well as the "harder" technology skills that students gain from being MOUSE Squad members.

The organization views the program as a tool for maximizing the impact of technology in an educational setting. "At the point at which we started to form an organization, I was very much aware that the entire educational system of our country was going to be dramatically altered because of information technology in ways that would be hard for the system to plan for and take advantage of," says Rasiej.

Special effort is made to recruit students traditionally less likely to participate in technology disciplines

MOUSE Squad steps in to take advantage of this transformation by placing technology in the hands of groups not typically exposed. The organization makes a conscious effort to involve girls in the traditionally male field; a third of the squad members are female. The program also targets schools in "higher needs" communities. On average, two thirds of the students in MOUSE Squad schools are on the free or reduced lunch program.

Irresistible Bait
Within the basic framework of MOUSE Squad, each school structures the program on its own. MOUSE essentially limits its role to training – faculty members are trained on the program model, and then both faculty and students are given technical training. But MOUSE will also provide schools with recommendations. For example, schools are counseled to target a broad range of the student population rather than focusing on students who are enrolled in technology or math and science classes. MOUSE also urges the schools to do specific outreach to the female students. Additionally, the organization recommends that students stay in the program for at least two years.

Faculty advisors in the schools take on the role of shaping the day-to-day workings of the program. In some schools, the students participate before or after school, while in others, they work at the Help Desk during free periods or as a lab component of a technology course. Schools use incentives like community service credit, course credit or stipends to keep students motivated.

Moving Into the Field
Although MOUSE Squad works exclusively with public schools in New York City, MOUSE is beginning to have an impact beyond the boundaries of the Big Apple. The organization is currently training faculty in school districts in Michigan, Connecticut and Washington, D.C., so that they can implement their own programs based on the MOUSE Squad model. MOUSE also plans to convene with other organizations that run similar programs this summer at the annual National Education Computing Conference.

Collaboration is intrinsic to MOUSE's philosophy. As Wacey explains: "We don't see it as a competitive field – we want to do right by the schools, and make sure that the schools have the best of all of us." In New York City, MOUSE Squad is bringing this enthusiasm to new schools every year. Up from three schools in 2000, MOUSE now operates squads in 36 city schools and expects to nearly double that number for next year.

To further hone the impact of the growing program, the organization has partnered with the Center for Children and Technology to launch a project called the TechSource Survey. According to Wacey, the survey will collect information on how schools are using technology "so that as budgets are being developed and investment decisions are being made, the information necessary to make educated decisions is available." The survey will be used both by MOUSE and by decision-makers at the Department of Education.

MOUSE Squad is beginning to reach out beyond New York City's borders.

The information collected in the survey will allow MOUSE Squad to focus its energies more precisely in the city's schools, but as demonstrated by the organization's collaborative spirit, the underlying vision of MOUSE ranges much farther than the five boroughs. As Rasiej explains, "Most people who've been involved in MOUSE believe that technology has the potential, if used properly, to alter the economics and the results associated with public education in our country."

To learn more about MOUSE, please contact Jen Vento, at jen@mouse.org, (212) 379-6348 ext. 203.

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