Crowd offers opinions on laptop initiative
Superintendent says providing laptops for students will not result in higher taxes
By ASHLEY ZSEDENYI
The LaRue County Herald News
February 25, 2010
LARUE COUNTY — Winter weather may have delayed the February school board meeting, but it was definitely heated up by the presentation of the 21st century learning initiative Laptops of LaRue.
Thursday, the LaRue County High School Media Center was packed to standing room only with students, teachers, parents and community members who wished to share their support or concerns with the initiative.
"In order for the student of 2010 to be successful in his or her adult life, students must be afforded as many technological opportunities as possible. The days of 'bookwork' have come to an end, and, in order to continue to see progress in all of our students, we must begin to offer new learning opportunities," said one LCHS teacher in response to an anonymous survey about the initiative.
Superintendent Sam Sanders and several members of the committee in charge of the initiative gave a presentation outlining the plans, details and goals of LOL.
Sanders said over the past several years, the school district has escrowed $1 million for this initiative.
"This initiative will not raise taxes," Sanders said.
He invited audience members to visit the district Web site to get more information about the LOL initiative.
LCHS Assistant Principal Rodney Armes, chairman of the handbook and discipline subcommittee, said all policies for the laptops will be outlined in the student handbook and will be signed off on by all parents at the beginning of the year.
Disciplinary actions will include detention and in-school suspension, as well as monetary fines for vandalism.
Extensive teaching on the proper procedures and care of the machines will occur, Armes said, and the school will offer a parent session prior to issuance of student laptops.
The proposed rental fee for LCHS students, which will include the current $60 textbook rental fee, will be $80 for both textbooks and the laptop. Armes stressed this fee was not set in stone, but the goal was to keep the cost "as affordable as possible" for students and their parents.
Students will be allowed to access their laptops with teacher permission or in a commons area during approved times, during the morning hours prior to school beginning, during lunch and during a proposed Internet Café during the early release time on Fridays.
"Our philosophy with our students will be if they show responsibility, we will allow them freedom with the technology. If they do not show responsibility, then we will take that freedom away," Armes said.
Amanda Reed, instructional supervisor for LaRue County Schools, was initially skeptical of giving laptops to every high school student because she "didn't want to lose focus on academic instruction."
Once she visited a school where a laptop initiative is in place, she said, she was immediately won over.
Reed said all it took was "seeing the engagement of the students" at those other schools.
Classroom management and interactive education software gives teachers the ability to limit programs and content accessed by students, and monitor what students are doing during class.
Students will use laptops in the classroom to blog, take lecture notes, download podcasts of lectures, access graphing calculators online and video labs.
Chemistry teacher Eric Cecil said "the possibilities are endless" with laptops in the classroom. He envisions utilizing virtual labs to complete experiments that are currently too dangerous or expensive to bring into the classroom.
Jeshua Logsdon, a junior at LCHS, shared results from a survey he conducted among students in December, and said one response that appeared numerous times was students see laptops as a tool to help them be more organized.
The initiative requires rewiring the current LCHS data network, adding new single mode fiber optics, installing new category 6 cable and relocating the distribution closets.
The proposed laptop for teachers would have a full size 15.4" screen, docking stations for peripherals, CD-Rom and DVD-Rom drives, student laptop monitoring/management and collaborative software.
The proposed student devices will be cost effective "minis" with a touch screen capability and the ability to do video and picture editing. Students will have the ability to add printers and connect to wireless Internet at home, that Internet filtering will remain in place as if they are still at school.
Staff and student laptops will be covered for accidental damage and theft, and theft tracking software will be imbedded in every laptop.
English teacher Katy Cecil said while students lose papers and other assignments, "they don't lose their phones." She thinks students would show responsibility when it comes to the laptops.
Audience member Dennis Coy said he didn't see any way taxes would not increase in the future in order to pay for the continuation of this initiative.
Coy asked Sanders to "put in writing" that taxes will not be increased to pay for it.
"When technology comes into play, jobs go by the wayside," Coy said. "When you take teachers out of the program, you get problems."
"I am all for education," he added, "but I'm a realist."
Kenny Rambo, speaking on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, said, "Today's high school students have grown up in the digital age, and it is in a digital world that they will soon be asked to work. They socialize through technology, they are entertained through technology, and clearly, they can be best educated through technology."
This story, written by Ashley Zsedenyi, was provided to One Knox courtesy of The LaRue County Herald News. Read more stories from The LaRue County Herald News at www.laruecountyherald.com.
