Kent Lagging Behind in Technology Grant Contest

Grade-school students in Kent need your help.

The district made it into the top 10 schools nationwide for Samsung's Solve for Tomorrow technology grant contest, but so far Kent is lagging behind at least five other schools in online voting to win the grand prize: $150,000 worth of Samsung and Microsoft products along with $10,000 in educational programming from DirecTV.

Kent made it into the top 10 based on their video, Davey Creek Day, which documented the work of students, environmental club members and its adviser, Chris Carman, during an outing Nov. 19.

The winner will be selected in part based on the number of votes received for each video. You can vote by visiting the Samsung contest video page  and clicking on the blue vote button beneath the Kent video.

The end results will be calculated based on 40 percent of the online votes and 60 percent by a judging panel, according to Samsung's contest website. Voting is open until Friday, according to Samsung's website, and you can vote multiple times each day.

Carman said in an e-mail the district has used its robotic phone dialing system to encourage voting, is promoting the contest on Facebook and Twitter, and teachers have carried netbooks around during lunch so students can vote.

"So we're doing just about everything we can think of, short of hiring a firm in India to vote for us," Carman said.