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ABC School Evaluation

Demographics
ABC School is a small town school that houses the entire 5th and 6th grade population of ABC town. There are four other schools in the district which are also divided by grade. Each grade consists of about 350-420 students. ABC School employs about 90 teachers, administrators, and support staff. 5th grade is broken up into 18 classes while 6th grade has 20. Many services are provided at ABC School for students with all types of needs. The students come from upper middle class families. The population is diverse in culture with families from many countries around the world. The two main groups of students are White and Asian/Pacific Islander.

As you can see in the chart below, there are approximately 15 students per one computer in ABC school while the state averages about 4 students per one computer.

Administrative: Emergent/Islands
The administration at ABC School and the district have recently become more interested and involved in integrating technology into instruction. While it has always been a goal and policy for ABC district to continue advancing in this area, budgetary constraints and other areas of need have caused the administration to lose focus. In the past two years, the district has formed committees of administrators, teachers, and community members to discuss and create a technology plan for the district in the upcoming years. There have been visible changes but there are still leaps and bounds that need to be made to fully equip all of the schools.

Policy
Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Islands As mentioned above, policy has always been put in place to advance technology in the classrooms and buildings. However, resources have been lacking. Even though the administration is putting more attention in implementing the policy, budget cuts are still a big area of concern.

Planning
Behavioral: Islands

Resource/Infrastructure: Islands At the technology meetings, a plan has been in the works for the district to find areas that need be addressed. The administration seems to be more active in the pursuit.

Budget
Behavioral: Emergent Resource/Infrastructure: Emergent Budgeting has been a huge issue in many districts in our area. With cuts looming over the district and staff for the past 4 years, it is hard to allocate money towards this plan when there are not enough teachers in classrooms. The administration have worked to ensure the students will still have a good education without taking too much away. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost to categories like technology.

Administrative Information
Behavioral: Emergent Resource/Infrastructure: Emergent Although there are meetings for representatives, very little information is disclosed specifically to teachers from the administration. Many times when teachers receive new technology, they are not notified. The minutes from the meetings are available online but there are no specifics about what and when the teachers will get something.

Curricular: Islands/Integrated
Every year, there is emphasis placed on updating curriculum to reflect the newest standards and computer programs/resources. The administration and teachers are on board with the new ideas and feel that it has benefited their instruction.

Electronic Information
Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated When the district purchased an online curriculum program, the administration created a goal to have all of the teachers post their information on it. They consistently provide time and resources for the teachers to use the program and re-align the curriculum to the new National Core Standards.

Assessment
Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated In the past few years, along with the online curriculum program, the district has also purchased many programs that help teachers create assessments. Additional standardized assessments have been implemented to track students progress. Other data such as from state assessments can be put into the system which all teachers can access.

Curricular Integration
Behavioral: Islands

Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated The teachers are provided with many resources to add technology to their lessons. Videos, projectors, laptop carts, computer labs, etc are all available for teachers to use. However, there is not enough of each resource for multiple teachers to use on a daily basis. Since it is tough to guarantee the availability of the materials, teachers are reluctant to make elaborate plans involving them.

Teacher Use
Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated As mentioned above, many resources are available but not all teachers are open to incorporating them into daily lesson plans. The librarian has been very open to help teachers with research projects using the internet.

Student Use
Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Emergent The students have elective classes with technology and are in general competent with using devices such as the iPad and Kindle. However, the students do not have much access to computers during the day at school. Therefore, they are not as literate with programs such as Microsoft Office.

Support: Emergent/Islands
The support in the district is an area of need. Although the district has made some leaps towards involving the community and providing technology for classrooms, there has been a lack of training and help for teachers. This causes teachers to feel incompetent in using the new equipment and nervous to incorporate it in their lesson plans.

Stakeholder Involvement
Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Emergent Meetings involving all stakeholders have been held a few times to discuss the technology plan for the district. Some surveys were done with teachers to see what was available to them in their classrooms and how often it is used. The schools have responded to the demands of the communities in the meetings by allocating more money towards the purchase of new programs and equipment. However, it is a slow process because the budget is not large enough to buy a lot at once.

Administrative Support
Behavioral: Emergent Resource/Infrastructure: Emergent Some of the administrators have been trained in certain programs but not all of them know how to use them. It is tough to find someone available to help at times because there are only so many supervisors for the large number of staff members.

Training
Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Islands Training for technology has always been lacking in the district for all teachers during the school year. Usually, small workshops are available after school or during the summers when many staff members are involved in other activities.

Technical/Infrastructure Support
Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Islands The technology coordinator is readily available by email to help troubleshoot technical issues. For many issues, a person is needed to be present to fix them. In the past, there would be computer specialists in each building to help solve these problems but with budget cuts there are a few to share amongst the district. Depending on the day, teachers may have immediate or no access to support.

Connectivity: Integrated
In general, the connectivity in the district is advanced and structurally sound. Teachers are given space on the network to store documents and files which are accessible in all of the buildings. The staff mainly communicates via email or phone. The internet is updated every two years as higher speeds are needed.

Local Area Networking (LAN)


Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated The LAN works well and has been in place for awhile. Each school has high speed internet but with the number of computers in the building it is not fast enough. It rarely experiences big issues besides when there is a natural disaster.

District Area Networking (WAN)


Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated The WAN works very well. The only problem with it is the amount of digital storage given to each staff member needs to be expanded. Also, teachers cannot access the files on their computers at home since it is on the network in the district.

Internet Access
Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Emergent The internet can be accessed in every school building through ethernet cables. One of the newer school buildings is equipped with wireless. The plan for the near future is for the entire district to have wireless access. Additionally, the internet is updated every other year to accommodate more computers but it is still too slow. An example of this problem is our annual computerized testing for Math and Language Arts. Four classes are tested each day during this

period of time. In the past two years, there have been issues with internet crashing and the program shutting down in the middle of a test.

Communication Systems
Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated Communication between administration, staff, and community members is usually conducted via email or phone.

Innovation: Islands/Integrated
New technology comes in waves at ABC district. The administration constantly researches programs and equipment that can enhance learning. Then, a new program would be purchased and marketed to the staff. After a short period of time, it is forgotten and the focus would be shifted to something else. This inconsistency has frustrated the staff of ABC district.

New Technologies
Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Islands The goal of the district is to constantly move the schools forward in technology. New programs are brought to the staff frequently after they have been purchased and researched by the administration. While the teachers have accepted many of them and tried to use them, there is still not enough training to make them aware of all of the components in the programs. The result is the district not reaping the full benefit of the money they invested. While programs are being updated, the hardware is very outdated. There are computers in classrooms that cannot support many of the newest programs that are out on the market now.

Comprehensive Technologies
Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Islands A variety of technologies are available in ABC school. From smartboards and interactive projectors to laptop and document camera carts, staff members have access to many ways to enhance their lessons. The resources are limited though so people are reluctant to plan on using them with the fear that they would not be available.

Summary
ABC School is located in a middle to upper middle class town. The students who attend the school are exposed to a wide variety of innovative technologies at home. The school serves about 800 students in grades 5 and 6. The school day is broken up into 6 hour long classes. One of the electives that the students take every other day is a computer course but it is only lasts about two months. Overall, ABC School is at the Islands of Technology Stage of maturity. This equipment found in this school is average. There are new interactive projectors being installed weekly into

classrooms but most of them are not fully installed to work yet. If you walk into a classroom without these mounted projectors, you would see outdated computers, overhead projectors, and old televisions. That does not mean the school does not have any new technologies available. There are laptop carts, document projectors, video cameras, and other hardware for teachers to use but in limited quantities. Teachers do not use them often though because some of them are faulty and there is a lack of support in the school building to fix any machines that break. The administration has put more emphasis in the software department. Many new programs have been implemented for teachers and students. Some are used for assessments while others take the data gathered from the assessments and provide activities for students to practice. Teachers have access to an online curriculum program to align their lesson plans and assessments to the new Common Core Standards. Also, staff members and community members can see exactly the goals and objectives of each course. The area in which the administration needs to work on is support. While new programs are exciting, the staff needs to be informed and educated about how to and when to use them. In the connectivity categories, the school needs to put more emphasis on providing higher speed internet and better computers. It is tough to have so many computers on a low capacity network. For the past few years, the administration has been working hard to update the district in all of the areas of technology. They have met with all stakeholders and have begun to make a plan for the upcoming years. So far much of the focus has been put on certain resources such as programs and providing the educators with more equipment. In the future, emphasis should be placed on not only purchasing new materials but educating the people who need to use it daily. In order to have a complete technological advancement, training is a must for teachers to feel confident to deliver the message to the students.

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