"The best part about this is that it's free for everybody," said Martha Carter, media specialist at Palmetto Elementary, one of the first South Florida schools to sign up for the program. "There's no cost to participants and no cost to the school."

The program works by translating the dollar amount a person spends on qualifying AT&T services into points. Those points are then added up to earn new computers, educational software, color printers and other important educational technology that is donated to the school of the participating customer's choice.

"There is no cost to the consumer and this is not a solicitation scheme," Carter emphasized.

Each participant chooses a school to support and, since this is a national program, they are not required to live in the same town as the chosen school.

AT&T will convert every dollar spent on the registered phone bill on qualifying services into five points and credit the school's account. When enough points are accumulated, AT&T will provide the software or computer equipment requested by the school.

"When we started this program last year with only 36 families participating, we were able to earn enough points to get three new computers for our school," said Carter. "Imagine if we had hundreds of families participating."

Subscribers who want to register their phone number for the Points for Schools program should first call their school's business office to learn the program account number, then call AT&T toll-free at 1-800-232-8200 to sign up.