Case Study: Hall Memorial School achieves tech‑savvy teachers and engaged students with SMART Technologies

Hall Memorial School bet its blue chip grant on SMART technology and won

Hall Memorial School, a small rural fourth–eighth grade school in Willington, Connecticut (about 330 students), needed to embed meaningful technology into classrooms and build teacher and student tech skills despite limited funds. The goal was to make technology useful for instruction and to create a technology‑savvy school culture.

With a $225,000 Blue Chip grant the school phased in SMART Board interactive whiteboards—eventually one in every classroom—gave teachers laptops, created a Technology Integration Specialist role, and provided hands‑on training. The result was widespread teacher collaboration and tech adoption, higher student engagement, enthusiastic parents, fewer discipline issues, and growing recognition from other districts.