Program to provide students with individual laptops

March 22, 2018 | Payton North
payton@thereminder.com

The East Longmeadow schools are considering purchasing several hundred Chromebooks for students to participate in the one to one program.
Reminder Publications submitted photo.

EAST LONGMEADOW –  By fiscal year 2020, your East Longmeadow student could be in possession of a school-issued Chromebook as a part of the school system’s desire to join the “one to one” program.

The East Longmeadow School Committee hosted a meeting on March 12 where the School Committee was presented to by IT Director Ryan Quimby, East Longmeadow High School Principal Gina Flanagan, Birchland Park Middle School Principal Timothy Allen and Mountain View Elementary School Principal Elaine Santaniello about the integration of technology into the classroom and all of the impressive programs and activities that the schools are already implementing in the classroom to keep East Longmeadow students ahead.

Superintendent Gordon Smith spoke to the ongoing partnership between the East Longmeadow Public Schools and the IT Department to discuss the implementation and building of their technology in the school systems.

“We’re hoping to build up inventory of equipment in each of the buildings and expand to the next step to provide a one to one program where each student has a laptop with them on a daily basis. It will allow the students to master the skills they need as they leave us in grade 12,” Smith said.

The group prepared a presentation for the School Committee which began with a video that featured a current college student and East Longmeadow High School graduate, a political consultant, an employee of Health New England and a creative producer at LEGO.  In the video, the four explained and described how they use technology in their day-to-day lives and in the workplace. The video highlighted the reasons why the schools hope to prepare East Longmeadow students for the future and have them well-acclimated to technology to be successful in their lives post-grade 12.

As the presentation continued, the slideshow shared that today’s workplace has changed.  A few jobs that were shared to describe today’s workplace were web analysts, chief listening officers, data miners, cloud computing specialists, app developers, medical technicians and machinists.  

“We need to prepare students for jobs and skills that we don’t even know about yet,” Smith said. “Our students need the competitive edge to stand out from the pack.”

Flanagan took over the next slide in the presentation which illustrates the difference between classrooms of roughly 40 to 60 years ago and the classrooms of today.  On one hand we see darker rooms with desks neatly placed in rows with little movement. On the other, the rooms are much brighter, free-flowing with desks in circles offering collaboration.

“Teachers are now becoming more and more facilitators to learning and much more student-centered. It’ really important that our physical spaces have the tools in them to support that type of learning,” Flanagan explained.

According to the presentation, learning today focuses in on digital age literacy, inventive thinking, effective communication and high-productivity.  These categories focus in on adaptability and curiosity, global awareness, interpersonal skills, prioritization and time management.

“Textbooks are still resources, but we’re seeing more and more of this digital process for gaining information. It’s really important that our kids know how to navigate these tools and do it responsibly and effectively,” Smith said. “We’re trying to utilize technology also to help students become more organized and their work be more efficient, again, model the citizen we want them to be when they leave us.”

“We know that education has been changing so of course how we assess learning and knowledge is also changing,” Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Valerie Annear said. She then  shared that starting next year, MCAS testing for grades three through 10 will now be fully online. A slide of the presentation featured a video of an example of what a student may be asked to do during testing, including reading a story, dragging and dropping answers into correct orders and using “tool” functions such as a ruler and notepad on the computer screen.

At this point in the presentation School Committee member Richard Freccero shared that he didn’t like the idea of the MCAS testing online.

“Not only does the student have to think, but they have to think and use technology at the same time?” Freccero questioned.

In an attempt to reassure him, Annear stated that students must be prepared for this type of learning, as it’s one they will be susceptible to in the future.

“Well, they’re growing up in an era that we need to prepare them to be able to think critically and interpret and analyze information digitally because they’re not going to get into the workplace and do that on paper,” Annear said. “The tools that you saw, it was just to give you a snippet. That’s not the heavy lifting. The heavy lifting is how we interpret and analyze information and show our knowledge in a digital format rather than in paper and pencil.”
 

Smith interjected, “The reason that we need to expand is because we don’t want the first time that they [students] utilize this type of technology to be the assessment test.”

The group continued and Santaniello shared that at Mountain View she believes that the schoolteachers are ready for this type of technology-based classroom, and are implementing steps already.  She also explained that she believes this will cut down on copying and copy paper costs because everything will be online.

According to the presentation, over a one-week analysis of Mountain View and Mapleshade elementary schools, 80 percent of Chromebooks were being used daily but “would be higher if devices were available in classrooms rather than spread through the building.”  In addition, 100 percent of the fifth grade students would use Google classroom on a daily basis and students in all grades use Google suite, multiple online learning platforms, integrate technology for creativity, collaboration and research.

At Birchland Park Middle School there are 11 Chromebook carts and one Macbook cart.  According to research, nine of every 10 days all 12 carts are used.  At the High School level, teachers have to sign out laptop carts for each class period and the slots are consistently filled.

The principals then shared that students of all levels are learning how to use social media appropriately.  In addition, students are learning special skills such as using iMovie to create videos and how to operate programming.

The schools completed a survey with parents in 2016, which showed that 97.3 percent of families have Internet access at home while 2.7 percent do not.  In addition, parents commented that “more technology would be an asset” and that “their student does not possess the technology tools to compete in the workplace or college, and that more STEM related courses are desperately needed.”

Reconvening, Quimby explained that other schools in the area are already doing one to one technology for their students, including Ludlow Public Schools, West Springfield Schools, Springfield Public Schools, Grafton Public Schools, Somers Public Schools, Suffield Public Schools. Next year, Quimby stated, Hampden and Wilbraham schools are looking to have grades four, six and nine being one to one grades.

“It’s the wave of today really, it’s not the wave of the future. We’re at the comfortable point where we’re not going to be getting ahead of ourselves and putting money out and not seeing a good return on it,” Quimby said.

He then shared their “sustainable financial plan” which included choosing devises that are known to be reliable and affordable.  Quimby stated that Chromebooks are the schools best option.

A School Committee member questioned the life expectancy of a Chromebook, to which Quimby responded that they have a six and a half year timer from their date of release. Google sets the timer and guarantees support for six and a half years from the date of release, not the date of manufacture.  Quimby then stated they are targeting a five-year replacement cycle.

School Committee Chair William Fonseca asked, “Are you comfortable with this life expectancy? At that point, do you have to start re-issuing, so once these hit that benchmark of the five years, they’re no longer efficient?”

“It’s a safe target for replacement,” Quimby stated.

The group presenting hopes to have one to one take home for grades three through 12 by school year 2019 to 2020.

“Our start date is fiscal year 2020, which is July 1, 2019. We wanted to make sure that we gave this enough time to vet the whole plan, bring you guys up to speed, the Town Council, Town Manger, bring them up to speed, address their concerns, and really make sure everybody is on board and we’re up-front about everything,” Quimby said.

Currently, the school system possesses 1,280 Chromebooks, 249 Mac’s, 73 PC’s and 395 iPads.

For the fiscal year 2020 hardware budget, there is a predicted 2,150 students enrolled from grades three to 12.  At that point, there will be 1,520 Chromebooks providing the schools receive the 240 Chromebooks requested for fiscal year 2019, leaving a 630 “device deficit.”  In addition, 612 Chromebooks will need to be replaced at this point, meaning there will be 1,242 new or replacement devices costing the town $434,700.

In addition, Quimby provided a budget forecast for the next several fiscal years, which show in FY20 465 replacement Chromebooks for $162,750, FY21 465 replacement Chromebooks for $162,750, and then each subsequent year continuing on a rotation of replacing devices at 320 each year with a cost of $112,000.

“It evens out around FY 23 to a less than $40,000 a year difference for hardware replacements,” he said.

Finally, Quimby shared that they hope to include three Instructional Technology Specialists.  

“We budgeted $63,000 a year for those positions, optimistically we get one in FY19, then we get our second in FY20 with our third in FY21.  We kind of staggered those in obviously to help so the first year isn’t as bad of a sticker shock,” Quimby explained.

At the close of the discussion the School Committee said they would need to discuss this with the Town Council considering there is a considerable amount of money involved.

To watch the School Committee meeting and discussion for yourself, tune into ELCAT’s video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfZ_iB2yWxM&t=4163s.

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