By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
With questions as to what’s in the best interest of the School District’s students and how to fund the 1:1 computer initiative approved by the East Troy School Board in March, the board revisited the need to get technology into the hands of every child in the district.
The board listened to a shortened presentation from the district’s Technology Committee on how it came to the recommendation it gave the board in March and answered questions regarding its choice of devices, mainly the Chromebooks that every student from third to 12th grade will have starting in the 2015-16 school year.
Board member Chris Smith, who was not on the board when the initiative was approved, had expressed concerns at previous meeting that Chromebooks were not the best choice for the district.
District Technology Coordinator Justin Modrak spoke on some of the concerns that had been forwarded to him. He admitted that while the Chromebooks are somewhat limited in their usage when offline, they were not
“merely web browsers” as they had been termed. He said the machines had the ability to be used for word processing and other things while offline.
Modrak said the reason the committee chose the Chromebook was because of its ease of use, long battery life and durability. He also said that because all the student’s work is stored on the “cloud” instead of the device, it was available for use on other devices and couldn’t be lost in the event of a device failure.
Modrak also addressed the concern that because Chromebooks are linked to the web and Google, that data would be collected on the students and what they were using the device for. He told the board that “simply is not the case” as Google does not data mine on educational domains such as the East Troy School District’s
After hearing the presentation and having some of their questions answered, Smith said he wasn’t sure the district was spending money wisely on the initiative. He dismissed some of the poll data presented by the Technology Committee about how many people want the kids in the schools to have access to their own devices, saying it was like asking his 2-year-old daughter if she wanted another cookie.
“Of course she would,” Smith said, and reiterated the point that if the board asked the residents if they wanted this program for the students, they would say yes. But if you asked them to pay for it, that would be a whole different matter.
Smith said he felt an initiative such as this, one that would affect every student and every family in the district, was something that should be brought to the public for input before being approved.
A Technology Committee member pointed out that the reason the board was made up of elected officials was so they could make informed decisions such as this.
Board President Ted Zess pointed out that it was their job to make these decisions and it would be unreasonable, and realistically impossible, to bring these types of decision to the residents every time they came up.
“We didn’t go to referendum when we instituted Project Lead the Way two years ago,” Zess said.
Board member Dawn Buchholtz reminded Smith that “every decision we make affects every single student in the district.”
Board member Martha Bresler said she had no problem with the initiative, but had a problem with the fact that they had not found a way to fund it.
This problem led to the next discussion. At the June 9 board meeting, district Business Manager Kathy Zwirgzdas told the board that the state Department of Public Instruction had issued a ruling that school districts could not charge technology fees for devices the district is requiring students to have, such as the Chromebooks and tablets the district is planning on having for the 2015-16 school year.
The district had been looking at about a $70 per child annual fee to fund the purchase, maintenance and replacement of the devices. Other districts with similar programs charge similar fees, although not all of them, said Zwirgzdas at an earlier meeting about how to finance the program.
The DPI’s ruling has put a wrench into the School District’s funding options and it is now faced with trying to come up with the money for the devices by utilizing budget cuts. With a projected shortfall of about $850,000 next year, that is going to be a challenge, said Superintendent Chris Hiber.
Hiber told the board members that he felt this program was vital to the district because it would allow East Troy Schools to compete with the surrounding districts that already have 1:1 programs in place, or are in the process of putting them in place.
“We can’t compete in the education market if we’re playing catch up,” Hibner said.
The board voted to administration look at other funding options available to them, including budget cuts if necessary. Smith abstained from the vote saying that it wasn’t because he was for or against the program, but because there was a lot of information on the table and he didn’t feel comfortable voting.
