Last modified: Monday, March 20, 2000 1:00 AM EST City schools lag on Internet connections (March 19) BY JIM HAND / SUN CHRONICLE STAFF ATTLEBORO -- The city school system lags behind others in providing classroom computers and access to the Internet to its students, according to a state study. The state Department of Education survey found Attleboro has one of highest student-to-computer ratios of any area school system in the area with 7.4 students per computer. Attleboro also trails in Internet access with less than 25 percent of classrooms connected compared to 100 percent in some neighboring school systems. Plainville schools also did poorly in the rankings while school systems such as King Philip Regional, Norton, Wrentham, Tri-County Regional Vocational did well. Attleboro School Superintendent Ronald Pacy said he is not sure the state information is up-to-date, but he said he knows Attleboro needs to do better. He said he is making a major push to upgrade Attleboro's technology in the new budget he is preparing for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Under his budget proposal, almost every school in the city would get a large infusion of new computers. The school system would lease the computers rather than purchase them in order to make it more affordable and to bring in as many new computers as possible. For instance, Studley Elementary School would get 48 new computers under the budget while Hill-Roberts Elementary and Willett Elementary would get 27 each. `` We need more computers, and we need to update the ones we have,'' he said. Pacy has been the superintendent in Attleboro for only seven months so he said he did not know the historical reasons for the lack of computers. He said his goal is to have three computers in every classroom and a computer lab in every school. The Wamsutta and Brennan Middle schools and Thacher Elementary School have a healthy number of computers because they are new schools that were equipped with computers when they opened, he said. The other schools, especially the high school, need many more computers, he said. `` My goal is to have as much technology as we can,'' he said. Pacy said the governor of Maine wants to provide laptop computers to every students. Pacy said he believes in the near future all states will follow Maine's lead. The state study shows Attleboro is also trailing the state average for computers, even among low-income communities. The state average is 5.1 students per computer and 5.3 percent in school districts with high enrollment of low income students. More than 62 percent of classrooms statewide are connected to the Internet, according to the survey.