NEWS INFORMATION FROM

THE OFFICE OF MAYOR STEPHEN R. REED
City of Harrisburg
King City Government Center
Harrisburg, PA 17101-1678
Telephone: 717.255.3040

FOR IMMEDIATE USE
24 March 2004

HGB. SCHOOL DISTRICT OFFERS FREE ADULT COMPUTER EDUCATION CLASSES TO CITY RESIDENTS

Harrisburg, PA—Mayor Stephen R. Reed today announced that the Harrisburg School District will be offering a series of free computer education classes for adult city residents beginning April 19 and continuing through May 19. Interested city residents should register for the program immediately as limited class space is available. The classes will be conducted by the Harrisburg School District and is part of the Mayor’s plans to expand adult educational services in the city.

The Mayor said the free classes are very similar to what is now offered to city school students, and includes everything from basic computer terms and operations to surfing the Internet and working with word documents. Computers and instructional materials will be provided by the District for use in the sessions, which run two hours in length each.

“Computer literacy is becoming an essential element of almost any work environment today,”said the Mayor, “and providing these basic skills to our residents free of charge will greatly assist their employment opportunities, as well as their own personal development. Computers play a significant role in almost every aspect of life today, and persons who have no computer skills are going to be increasingly left out of the mainstream of our workforce and society.”

“These are the first in what we intend to be an expanded schedule of adult education programming by the Harrisburg School District,” the Mayor added. “With the implementation of early childhood education, the array of new and expanded programming, the start-up of Harrisburg University and its related SciTech High, and now these free adult education classes, we are creating an educational system that is providing services to residents beginning at age three, and continuing through retirement age.”

Reed said registrants should be prepared to attend ten different sessions over a four week period. Proof of city residency must be provided at the time of registration, and can include any type of utility bill, rental lease, driver’s license or other documentation. Twenty-four spaces are available for the inaugural class on a first-come, first-serve basis, so interested residents should act quickly to take advantage of the free new service.

The Mayor said all of the sessions will run from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and include:

• Getting to Know the PC—featuring hands-on experience with the many different accoutrements of personal computing, including the monitor, keyboard, mouse, printers, disks and other internal hardware and operating systems. The class will be held April 19.
• What’s Windows—explores the popular operating system and such elements as the desktop, screen saver, icons, windows, folders, calculator, saving files, etc. Two classes are required for this material and are slated for April 21 and 26.
• Surfing the World Wide Web—covers modems, searching the web, browsers, search engines, downloading items from the web and much more. Three classes are required and they are set for April 28, and May 3 and 5.
• Writing with Microsoft Word—teaches the array of skills and operations needed to successfully produce a wide variety of word documents. Four classes are needed for this and they are slated for May 10, 12, 17 and 19.

The Mayor said interested applicants should contact Kelly Unger at the Harrisburg School District at (717) 703.4139 to learn more about the program and to register for the free classes.

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