In March 2015, several volunteer faculty members, along with administrators within the Tabernacle school district, set off on a journey.
They were tasked with recommending new technology to replace the current Dell computers, devices that are nearing the end of their lease dates.
“The teachers and administrators who served on this committee deserve much recognition and praise for their hard work for the children of the Tabernacle school district,” Director of Curriculum and Instruction Christine Skinner said.
The group believes all students should be afforded the opportunity to utilize technology for the purpose of enhancing academic achievement, and in support of this belief, it recognizes the enormous potential a superior infrastructure will allow the teachers and students.
Along with the acquisition of the proper technology, the group placed a priority on ongoing, high-quality training and support programs to maximize effective use of these resources.
The overarching goal of its proposal is to produce individuals who will be able to use all types of technology to solve problems, create reports and presentations, and to gather knowledge both individually and collaboratively in preparation for being active members of the 21st century.
“We’re looking to go where Tabernacle always goes and that is to the cutting edge of where education is possible,” Olson Middle School teacher Steve Cramer said.
Literature related to effective educational technologies served as a research base for the committee. It put together a checklist matrix to utilize when investigating different technology devices to make sure they met numerous criteria, all while keeping the Tabernacle school district creed of “educating for a lifetime” in mind.
The group has met 10 times since it was established to survey, research, visit other school districts that use different technologies and listen to vendor presentations from several technology companies.
Both Apple and Dell visited twice. While the committee acknowledged it was impressed with both group’s presentations, it said Dell did not make that “jump” the way Apple was able to when it comes to its superiorities in the classroom.
According to Cramer, Apple’s presentation was much more tailored to the teachers in the room, who were more focused on how they would integrate these devices into a lesson and in turn aid their students with learning.
Apple provides the cheaper option both in the short term and in the long term when taking into consideration things such as durability, longevity and resale value. It also offers the option of using Windows programming to allow students to be well versed in both.
The group set a goal to create a 1:1 environment for all of the students over the next five years.
“That means every student has a device or has access to a device,” Cramer said.
This would require the acquisition of 85 laptops for teachers, 35 laptops and 165 tablets for kindergarten to second grade, 152 laptops for grades three to four, and 349 laptops for grades five to eight.
The committee established the tablets to be a definite benefit for the district’s younger learners and laptops to support the curriculum of the older learners.
The dropping enrollment within the district was taken into account when producing these propositions.
“We don’t want to walk away at the end of five years and have way more devices than we actually need,” Cramer said.
While the committee understands it will not get to its long-term goal in the first year, it understands it needs to have some sort of rollout for this proposal. So it recommended the first purchase consist of 85 staff laptops, 80 iPads, 125 elementary school laptops and 200 middle school laptops.
This will provide a strong start and will more than likely result in the 1:1 ratio by year four.
“By year four, we’re definitely at a 1:1,” Cramer said. “We’re being told that we can probably even be there by year two or year three.”
The Board of Education plans to address this proposal at the April board meeting if it feels it has digested all of the information to the point that it is in a position to make an educated decision.
“We’ve got more questions that have answered, but at least we have a plan that gets us from where we are now to where we need to be for September,” Interim Superintendent Dr. John Sherry said.
The financial proposal for the first year has been included in the tentative budget for the 2016–17 school year. For the proposal to meet its benchmarks, it has to be completely approved by July 1.
