Bassick High's Recording Studio

I am a music teacher at Bassick High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  Bassick is among the poorest schools in the state; 100% of our students receive free or reduced price lunch.   I took over the job this year, and found almost no equipment or materials for the 400+ students I teach.  

Because I have a background in audio engineering and a lot of friends, I have managed to cobble together old, donated equipment, in addition to purchasing almost $1000 worth of equipment myself, to create a bare bones recording studio.  I'm currently using my personal laptop to run it, but that means my laptop is not available for me to run the other portions of the class while teaching.  What I need is a dedicated computer and the software to run the Digital Audio Workstation that drives the studio.  I finally have all the rest of the equipment in place, but I can't keep it operating because I have to keep removing my laptop to run the other parts of the class, so I'd like to raise the funds as quickly as practicable.

While I was building the studio,  several students who have long and troubled disciplinary histories with other teachers suddenly became interested, attentive, and engaged, even coming in before and after school to help me get it set up.  When I began to hear about the change in their attitudes from their other teachers, I knew that I had hit on  something I could do to make a difference, to catch students who were falling through the cracks everywhere else.   

By funding this campaign, you'd be injecting hope directly into the heart of one of the neediest schools in the country, and giving an opportunity to some of the most challenging and deserving students I've ever met.  I thank you in advance for choosing to help create a pathway to success for my students!