LAUSD PLUGS IN SCHOOLS TO WEB.

Byline: - Mariel Garza

After a shaky start, the Los Angeles Unified School District has connected more than 400 schools to the Internet and plans to hard-wire every campus by 2003, district officials said Thursday.

Since July 2000, the district has hard-wired 404 schools for Internet access and has sought an extension for an additional 101 schools that it expects to complete by February, said James Konantz, LAUSD assistant superintendent of information and technology.

In all, the district expects to hard-wire 647 schools that qualify for federal funding under the E-Rate program by September 2003. In addition, it will use funding from other sources to wire all of its schools by the same date, Konantz said.

``I'm really proud of the district,'' said Konantz, who noted that in July 2000 only 16 schools had been hard-wired under the E-Rate program.

Just last March it appeared the district might lose $40 million in E-Rate federal funds because of it was unable to meet a June 30 deadline to hard-wire a group of schools.

The Federal Communications Commission granted the district a Sept. 30 deadline extension to hard-wire the schools. District officials said they met the new deadline, but are still working to hard-wire 101 schools that were under contract to a vendor who was not able to finish the project. The district has until February to hard-wire those schools.

So far, the district has received $230 million in funds under the federal government's program to connect schools in low-income communities to the Internet and cross the so-called ``digital divide.''.