Implementation of the Teens Teach Tech program is set to begin in the Jim Thorpe Area School District following unanimous board approval last week.

The grant-funded initiative sponsored by AT&T and administered by Connected Nation Inc. aims to leverage students’ technology skills to provide basic digital training to adults in their communities.

Beyond providing technology education to adults, district officials said, the program offers students valuable opportunities to earn community service hours while developing real-world skills.

“Teens Teach Tech provides us with curriculum for six different topics that they have made up,” Jim Thorpe Future Business Leaders of America adviser Tonia Thompson said. “We meet with our students and train them, and then we train the adults.

“One item could be Internet safety, but we could also train them on our technology pieces such as PowerSchool, Google Classroom or Google Meet. Stroudsburg also uses this. One of the things they do is they have a table during Meet The Teacher night where they will train adults.”

According to the program agreement provided by Connected Nation, participating organizations such as Jim Thorpe can receive both start-up funds and performance-based incentives.

“They give us start-up funds of up to $500 per team if we need to purchase devices, or if we need to purchase things like coffee and doughnuts or something for the people who come in,” Thompson said.

Beyond the initial funding, organizations can earn additional money based on the number of adults trained. As specified in the agreement, “For every person trained, $10 may be awarded with up to 400 trainees permitted.”

This creates the potential for participating schools to earn up to $4,000 in additional program funds.

The program agreement stipulates that the “earned funds” must be used “solely for the students’ or program benefit.”

As for implementation, Thompson outlined plans to conduct training sessions during various school events.

“My plan for it is to have sessions at Meet The Teacher, parent/teacher night, reading nights, math nights, really anytime we see our adults to help train our school parents,” she said. “But then we can also go to nursing homes and train the older generation on how to use different types (of technology).”

Thompson proposed creating multiple teams across different school buildings.

“Each of our three FBLA chapters can have our own team,” she said. “And what we would do is, at Meet The Teacher night, each chapter or team would have a topic, and then those adults can go from one to the next, and then that’s like training three separate individuals.”

The program agreement outlines several responsibilities for participating organizations, including supervision of students, program reporting, and documentation. Jim Thorpe must “submit an event summary after each training event and provide one photo or video of each training performed by students.”

The agreement also requires quarterly reports summarizing “all training conducted (number of people who were trained, number of students that participated in the program, any media materials, success stories, and feedback).”

“We would love to renew it annually,” Thompson said. “AT&T’s goal is to train over 5 million people by the end of 2030 so it’s at least supposed to be around until (then).”