District Considering Technology Options

It has been more than a decade since the Howell Township Public Schools passed a referendum that brought sweeping technological improvements to the district. Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, the district is looking at ways to keep up with the always changing technology.

At Wednesday night's board of education meeting Superintendent Enid Golden said representatives from the district met with people from Apple. The purpose of the meeting was to see what could be done to improve the technology offered to the students in the schools. "We are clearly in need of refreshing our current technology in our schools," she said. 

One of the options being discussed is how to bring a one-to-one program where each student would have access to their own computers. That would at the very least compliment the current system that includes mobile computer labs and the stand alone computers the district currently offers. 

Golden said a taskforce has been established to look into the options further and they will meet for the first time next week. "There are lots of questions," she said. Among those are what the district's current infrastructure can handle and what impact the proposed plans could have on the curriculums the schools follow.

She added that while the group currently includes only district administrators, teachers and board members, by the new year she expects members of the community to be added to the membership as well.

Board President Tim O'Brien also suggested having representatives from the student body in the group since they would be the ones using the tablets if they are approved. "That's usually where a lot of companies go wrong," he said. "They end up bringing out a product but they forget to ask whether the people really wanted it."

Even without having their first meeting, there were already questions about what kind of financial impact any plan could have. One of those questions came from board member Jeanette Smith, who is already a member of the task force. 

When asked about how the technology improvements could impact the possibility of the lowering of the tax burden, Golden said it is a factor the group will have to consider. "The goal is to reduce the tax burden, but whether we go to something like 1:1 computing we have to do something because we are currently slipping in technology," she said. "Our technology is getting old. It has slowed down. We're getting frustrated by what we can't do and what we want to do. Something has to be done."

She also added that while ideally she would like to see all the changes made at once she did not believe that was feasible given the current economic climate. "We may need to do some sort of phase in, but I don't know what it looks like yet, so I can't answer that question," she said. 

The district already has a working relationship with Apple as some of the special education classes will be starting a pilot program with the popular iPad tablets. Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Services Patricia Callander said that program is being worked into those classes slowly. 

That program is starting with training for the teachers who will use the tablets. They in turn will then be given the time they need to see how they will best be able to utilize them in their classes. Only when they are comfortable will they then bring them to the students. Callander said at the end of the year there will be a review of the data to see how successful the program was. 

After the meeting Golden said this is just the beginning of the process in looking into any changes he district might seek to make. "We have a lot of work ahead of us and no decisions are made, but it really does seem like it's the way of the future. And since we need to refresh right now, it might be something we want to do."

The board is scheduled to meet again Dec. 14 at Middle School North at 8 p.m.