FAYETTEVILLE -- Some junior high school students are getting experience that could qualify them for a job in the screen-printing business, thanks to one foundation's gifts.
Jon Bukont's two digital graphic design classes at Woodland Junior High School have a Hewlett-Packard Latex 335 printer, which prints on material up to 64 inches wide.
The school acquired the printer with a $24,000 grant from the Roy and Christine Sturgis Charitable and Educational Trust. The trust provided another grant of about $16,000 this year for screen-printing equipment, which is set to arrive Tuesday, Bukont said.
The foundation provides grants for equipment to schools and other organizations across Arkansas with the goal of improving the quality of life, said Kathy Findley, a foundation trustee.
Findley and her daughter Anna, who's also a foundation trustee, visited Woodland on Friday to observe the foundation's investment at work.
"It's great to see what's happening here," Kathy Findley said. "It's great to see that young people are learning useful skills for those who aren't necessarily interested in going to college."
This is the second year Woodland has offered the one-semester digital graphic design class. Bukont taught two sections of it last year. He's teaching two sections this semester with about 50 students combined; he'll teach another section next semester.
He expects another section to be added next school year. Students are attracted to it because they understand they can learn by doing, not just sitting at a desk, Bukont said.
The goal of the class is to teach students to use a computer to design a logo based on a client's specifications, then produce a variety of material -- yard signs, posters, banners, stickers and more -- featuring that design.
"Any student who walks in and really involves themselves from the artwork to the production, they can walk into a sign shop, explain what they've done before, and I think any sign shop would be able to give them a job," Bukont said.
Learning how to use the wide-format printer expands the students' technical knowledge, so they "see the entire process, rather than one very specific piece," he said.
Bukont's students produce a variety of marketing material for the School District as well as local businesses and nonprofit organizations. Some of the profits from their work goes to the school's robotics program, which Bukont also oversees.
"It's a win-win," said Cambre Horne-Brooks, director of the Fayetteville Public Education Foundation, which received the Sturgis grant and passed it on to Woodland. "The district has a place where they can go and not spend a lot of cash, while at the same time the kids are learning how to design and develop these things."
NW News on 12/08/2019