Bell Atlantic Funds Third Year of World School Grant

Bell Atlantic Funds Third Year of World School Grants

Company to Award $40,000 to Innovative West Virginia K-12 Teachers

March 10, 1997

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Wanted: West Virginia teachers with
creative and
exciting ideas that will help their students tap the global resources
of the Internet. The best projects will win awards from the Bell
Atlantic® WORLD SCHOOL® Grant Program, which has been funded for
$40,000 this year.

The WORLD SCHOOL Grant Program is designed to encourage West Virginia
educators to creatively integrate telecommunications technology and
collaborative learning into classrooms using the Internet. Bell
Atlantic-West Virginia has awarded more than $203,000 in grants to
teachers at 30 schools since the program's inception in 1995.

"Bell Atlantic is proud to fund the WORLD SCHOOL Grant Program again
this year," said Dennis Bone, president and CEO of Bell
Atlantic-West
Virginia. "The creativity and quality of the projects we've
underwritten have been phenomenal, and many of them can be used by
other educators. They're easily accessible on the WORLD SCHOOL site
on the World Wide Web." The Web address for WORLD SCHOOL is
<http://www.bellatlantic.com/wschool>.

The WORLD SCHOOL Grant Program complements Bell Atlantic's WORLD
SCHOOL project, through which the company is offering direct,
high-speed digital Internet access to more than 700 kindergarten
through twelfth-grade public schools in its West Virginia service
area. Nearly 600 schools now have WORLD SCHOOL Internet access, but
teachers in all public schools served by Bell Atlantic-West Virginia
are eligible to submit applications for the grant program.

The company awards individual WORLD SCHOOL grants of up to $4,000. A
panel of education leaders and Bell Atlantic employees judges all grant
proposals. Grant money cannot be used to purchase tariffed telephone
services or hardware such as computer monitors, hard disk drives,
printers or liquid crystal display (LCD) panels.

Bell Atlantic will award grants on an ongoing basis; the deadline to
submit applications for 1997 grants is Dec. 5. Interested educators
can obtain applications from the Bell Atlantic-West Virginia public
relations office by calling 1-800-642-8206.

Bell Atlantic Corp. (NYSE: BEL) is
at the forefront of the new
communications, entertainment and information industry. In the
mid-Atlantic region, the company is the premier provider of local
telecommunications and advanced services. Globally, it is one of the
largest investors in the high-growth wireless communication
marketplace. Bell Atlantic also owns a substantial interest in
Telecom Corporation of New Zealand and is actively developing
high-growth national and international business opportunities in all
phases of the industry.

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