Kendall Kids and Gateway Computers:
What's the Connection?

Below is the story that appeared in On the Green in the March 15, 2000 edition along with many scanned images from the report itself.

Barbara Kaufman’s class of seven- and eight-year-olds poses with the KDES Magic School Bus made of Gateway boxes

KDES students to appear on the cover of Gateway’s Annual Report

By David Tossman

Students at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School will be gracing the cover of the Gateway computer company’s year 2000 Annual Report, which details the financial highlights of the company during the previous year and projections and predictions for earnings and sales in upcoming years.

Thanks to the ‘net surfing’ skills of Darlene Prickett, Public Relations assistant, Gateway will be featuring the KDES students on the cover and inside the report, which will go out to its 200,000 shareholders in April.

Prickett was checking the KDES Website when she saw a Gateway computer box with its trademark black-and-white cow markings on the screen, accompanied by the intriguing question, ‘Gateway boxes anyone?’ Prickett clicked on the box and inside pictures appeared of creative objects that the talented KDES students have made with empty Gateway boxes–a truck, a boat, a tree, and a village, for example.

"I thought it was neat," said Prickett, so she told PR Director Mercy Coogan and Assistant PR Director Sherry Duhon about the Website. "We all agreed it was incredible, and that Gateway might be interested, so we called their corporate headquarters (in San Diego, Calif.) and spoke with someone in their Public Relations Office about it."

It turned out that on the same day, Gateway managers had been in meetings around the clock discussing what to do with the Annual Report. The managers could not agree on a theme or the photos to accompany it. During a break in their meeting, they were tipped off about the KDES Website, so they went back to their offices and checked it out on their computers. Everyone agreed that what the Kendall students were doing was perfect, and they decided to use it for the report’s theme.
According to Tyson Heyn, manager of corporate communications, "The timing was perfect—it was one of the roughest days for many of us at Gateway, and to see the note about the Website in the afternoon put a smile on many peoples’ faces!"

Heyn and a camera crew came to Kendall last month to photograph the students with their creations. Among the hundreds of Gateway boxes piled in various classrooms are finished products such as a giraffe in art teacher/researcher Phil Bogdan’s pre-school classroom. In teacher/researcher Barbara Kaufman’s Grades 1 and 2 classroom sits a Magic School Bus where students can go inside to read a book, and in art teacher/researcher Wei-Min Shen’s classroom is an eagle. "The KDES Magic School Bus reading nook project’s purpose was to motivate young students on Team 1 and 2 to read," said Kaufman. "There has been no trouble getting the children inside the bus to read, but to get them out is something else!" The visit from Gateway, she added, "was a special honor for Kendall School as a whole. …. Gateway is a wonderful avenue for our school to share with the world the many talents both our school and personnel have to offer!"

"I was very impressed by the dedication and passion exhibited by the Kendall staff," said Heyn. "It’s clear to me that there is a strong vision and purpose in the hearts of everyone I met, and it’s very exciting to see the fruits of their efforts. The students really seem to enjoy the community and education processes that Kendall introduces. The school is making a terrific impact in children’s’ lives. I can now understand why Kendall has become a model educational institution, not just for the United States, but around the world."