Cherokee County can best be described as a rural agricultural community whose solid economic environment is comprised of fertile lands and an abundant water supply. Agriculture is the county's largest industry, involving not only row crops but also new agri-businesses such as seed production and ornamental plants. Weiss Lake makes tourism a vital part of the local economy. Little River Canyon National Preserve, historical sites, points-of-interest, and town festivals compliment the county's appeal as an attractive place to visit.

The county school system offers the more than 3500 students of Cherokee County extensive learning opportunities, including the traditional curriculum, fine arts, vocational training, and technology. Furthermore, with the many athletic programs and extra curricular activities at each school, students are assured a well-rounded, quality education.

Our commitment to a quality technology program has been the single "thread" that runs through all areas of the curriculum. Our technology program had its beginnings some seven years ago when our local telephone company (Peoples Telephone Company) asked if we would like to have dial-up access to the Internet supplied to the schools and also be responsible for managing the server. This was a true learning experience for both parties. They succeeded as an Internet Service Provider, and the dial-up Internet access opened up the world to our students and teachers. Since that first connection, technology has been a main focus in our curriculum. Three years ago the Cherokee County Board of Education voted to provide the matching funds necessary to install a LAN at each school and tie everything back to a central location so that information could be shared from school to school and with the Central Office. The design, installation, and maintenance of the LAN's and WAN would be based on the concept that we would have to rely on ourselves for almost everything. We were operating on a "shoe-string" budget and could not afford the luxury of hiring outside consultants or contractors. In a four month period of time, with hundreds of hours of volunteered time eight students and two teachers wired every school in Cherokee County. Over 15 miles of Category 5 wire was installed, along with the hundreds of connectors used to terminate the wire ends. The eight student technology team wired each equipment rack, installed the patch panels, hubs, switches, Novell servers, and connected all computers at each school to the newly established LAN. The Cherokee County WAN consists of HDSL (786 kbs) connections at six sites and the four remote schools are connected to the WAN via 10 Mb wireless spread spectrum links. Wireless connectivity was the only affordable option and has proved to be as strong a telecommunication link as the conventional sites, only less expensive. With the help of Trillion Digital Communications, we became the first school system in Alabama to have a wireless WAN connecting schools. This hybrid network is the backbone of technology in Cherokee County. It is unique and one of a kind that serves the students and teachers well. Internet access, administrative data transfers, and e-mail are the main functions of the network at this time. In August 1999, distance learning becomes a reality in our rural school system. Jacksonville State University and the Cherokee County School System will partner a dual enrollment project that will allow students and teachers to take college courses via a video conferencing system between JSU (some 45 miles south of Cherokee County) and Cherokee County.

Our newest partner, Lucent Technologies, will assist us in taking our technology plan to our ultimate goal. It has always been our plan to eventually bring video, data, and, audio to the desktop. With a very limited budget we knew that this would be something that would be years down the road before we could obtain this goal. With Lucent Technologies newest products, MMCX and Virtual Lecture Hall, we will be able to meet our goal of desktop video conferencing and even surpass it. We will now be able to share resources from all over the county, as well as utilizing resources from neighboring systems. We will now be able to offer advanced courses to small groups of students at all our school sites from a central location. Collaboration and sharing of ideas and best practices between teachers, students, administrators can now be easily facilitated over our WAN and across links to distant sites.

We are exactly where we wanted to be, only about two years ahead of schedule thanks to the help, support, and expertise of Lucent Technologies, Trillion Digital Communication, Peoples Telephone Company and a great deal of local effort and support.