Feb. 20—When a Pullman High School teacher applied for a grant to improve his program, he didn’t expect to get more than double the amount offered.

“It was a windfall,” said Samuel Anderson, a STEM and Project Lead the Way teacher. “I was really taken aback.”

The $48,000 grant from the Office of Superintendent and Public Instruction’s iGrants system. It will pay for a computer lab at the school, and provide several other enhancements to its Project Lead the Way program, which introduces students to engineering, electronics and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, according to its website.

The grant was supposed to award several Washington schools $20,000 to expand the project, but only four schools including Pullman applied, Anderson said. The office contemplated reopening submissions, but decided to have the schools revise budget requests for a possibility of more funding.

Anderson said no one knew how much would be granted, and the amount was a pleasant surprise.

“You see $50,000 grants once in a blue moon,” He said. “This is a rarity that’s going to be great for the school for the long term.”

The lab includes 28 new student computers and a teacher work station, Anderson said. The grant also provided funding for digital electronics kits, soldering kits and other improvements.

“We’re looking at technology that’s a year old, so it’s still modern enough we can upgrade them down the road,” he said, “to serve the school for years to come.”

Anderson said the current lab is at least six years old, and the computers are barely able to run the latest version of Windows. He said it isn’t just the high school, but several Pullman schools’ technology is aging.

He said the district included a technology capital projects levy in Whitman County’s February election. It would generate $300,000 annually over four years to replace its classroom computers and Chromebooks.

In the latest Whitman County Elections Office update, the levy seems to be passing. Results will be certified Friday.

Anderson said the levy is separate from the grant, and the timing was just a coincidence.

“This is something we won’t have to use a levy or school funding to do,” he said. “And a computer lab is expensive.”

The school hopes to get the new lab up and running before spring break, or early April. Anderson said the school is working on a proposal to get bids before purchasing the new equipment.

Once the lab has been installed, he said the old computers won’t go to waste. The technology was purchased with Career and Technical Education money, a program at the school, and parts will be distributed to other classrooms in need of updating software.

“It isn’t benefiting one classroom,” Anderson said. “The old machines still work. We can start replacing old technology around the school.”

Pearce can be reached at epearce@dnews.com