During the October 16, 2014 Town Hall School Board meeting, Walter Paschke, network coordinator for the Technology Information Services department described the technology needs for Hernando County’s schools. They are using aging laptops which are starting to cost as much to maintain as to replace. Their machines are currently 6-7 years old running Windows XP which is no longer supported. The minimum requirements for testing do not support Windows XP.
He mentioned that Dr. Romano, Superintendent, came to him and said she would like to have a plan for replacement of technology in addition to a one to one initiative which is another state requirement coming to everybody. The one to one initiative includes:
– A tablet for every student within 3 years
– Students take the tablets home
– Tablets used for computer based testing
– Grade level pilot includes all schools
This one to one initiative was budgeted to cost taxpayers $62,395,000 over the next ten years as part of the Penny for Projects tax referendum. However the aims of the one to one initiative were not identified in the Digital Classroom Plan submitted to and accepted by the State Department of Education on October 7, 2014, one week previous to the Town Hall meeting. The Digital Classroom Plan is required by the State to receive the Digital Classroom Allocation through the Florida Education Finance Program. Each district in the state has a Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) allocation of a minimum of $250,000. Hernando County’s Digital Classroom plan states that their baseline Student to Computer Device Ratio is 3:1. Their goal is to have a Student to Computer Device Ratio of 2:1 to be achieved by 2018, far less than the tablet for every student goal set in the one to one initiative. In order to achieve the 2:1 goal, they plan to purchase and implement 325 tablet devices in elementary and combo school setting throughout the district for a cost of $162,500. An additional $36,400 would be needed to purchase and implement 13 tablet mobile charging stations to be used throughout the district. As Walter Paschke pointed out at the Town Hall meeting, another goal is to upgrade the operating system on machines to support computer assessments. They estimate the cost of this at $133,000.
The one to one initiative seems to go beyond state requirements based on the Digital Classroom Plan submitted by the Hernando County School Board and approved by the state. Additionally, money has already been set aside through the FEFP to help fund the implementation of technology in our schools.
Florida Statute 1006.40 states,”Beginning with the 2015-2016 fiscal year, each district school board shall use at least 50 percent of the annual allocation for the purchase of digital or electronic instructional materials that align with state standards included on the state-adopted list…”
In essence, the school board must purchase about $150,000 worth of digital instructional materials with the annual allocation. The school board wants to ensure that these digital instructional materials have a purposeful use. If they purchase enough tablets for each student, then they can use the tablets as digital textbooks as well as for testing. However, the school board would be spending about $6 million each year to save $150,000 per year.
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http://laws.flrules.org/2014/56
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=1000-1099/1006/Sections/1006.40.html