JAY – The Jay School Department has received a $454,079 federal grant to increase distance-learning opportunities for the town’s schoolchildren and students in 11 additional partner schools.

The Rural Utilities Service grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay for telecommunications, Jay school Superintendent Robert Wall said.

Jay’s school partners include elementary, middle and high schools in Dexter, Exeter, Garland, Moscow, Bingham and Lewiston.

The Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program was created to encourage, improve, and make affordable the use of telecommunications, computer networks and related technology for rural communities to improve access to educational and/or medical services.

Maine schools partnering in the grant will establish video conferencing opportunities so that students in one school could take a class being given at another school through the telecommunications system.

“We were lucky to get it,” Wall said of the grant.