Sturbridge District Technology Plan

2004-2007

District Information
Burgess Elementary School
45 Burgess School Rd.
Sturbridge, MA01566
LEA Code 287
Superintendent of Schools: Daniel Durgin
Contact Person: Daniel Carlson

Background
The Tantasqua Regional School District and School Union #61 are located in south central Massachusetts. The district is comprised of five towns including Brimfield, Brookfield, Holland, Sturbridge and Wales. Each of the five towns has its own elementary school and K-6 school district under the jurisdiction of School Union #61.

Burgess Elementary School is located in Sturbridge. Tourism is a major industry with the living museum, Old Sturbridge Village being the primary attraction. Sturbridge offers a variety of hotels and inns, restaurants and shops for every taste and budget. Population is over 9,000.

As a member of School Union #61, Sturbridge maintains its own local elementary school for grades PreK-6 but joins the towns of Brimfield, Brookfield, Holland and Wales for grades 7-12. Current student enrollment is about 859. There are 41 regular classrooms, and 18 rooms for special education and special subjects and a library media center.

Burgess Elementary School is committed to providing a supportive, mutually respectful environment that enables students to develop to their full potential. The school program promotes educational and social equity, with an emphasis on heterogeneous student grouping and diversified teaching to meet the needs of all students. To accomplish this, the school district has the following goals:

• To provide a safe and healthy environment for the well-being of all those in school
• To refine and sustain a school climate that supports mutual respect and builds a sense of citizenship and community responsibility
• To promote intellectual growth and lifelong learning for students and staff that will prepare them to meet the challenges of a complex and changing society
• To stimulate curiosity and develop critical thinking skills in all areas of teaching and learning
• To actively help students develop the self-esteem and skills necessary to learn, grow and overcome any obstacles

Technology Mission Statement
The technology mission of Tantasqua Regional School District and School Union #61 is to provide equitable access for all students and staff to technological resources. These resources promote critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills required for students to become lifelong learners and productive citizens in a technologically complex, multicultural and global environment.

Technology Vision Statement
Our purpose is to provide the students in our schools with the tools and knowledge base to succeed in an ever changing world. It is our objective is to continue implementing the Massachusetts Recommended PreK-12 Instructional Technology Standards in order to provide these necessary skills to our student population. Ongoing technology professional development serves as a vehicle to enable teachers to enhance their classroom environments.

Technology is a vital source of information and communication linking school, home, community and the world. It provides us with the impetus and the means to enrich our schools in the following ways:

• Access local and global information
• Provide effective and efficient communication
• Streamline administrative tasks
• Actively engage students in learning, both individually and in groups
• Enable students to access the curriculum
• Collect and analyze data
• Manage assessment data
• Provide differentiated instruction
• Offer individualized instruction
• Enable assistive technology

Technology enables teachers to modify their classroom environments to meet the challenges of today's world and has become an essential tool for teaching and learning.

Current Status
This section provides information on the status of the school district as of school year 2004/2005. Data collection was based on the Massachusetts DOE Teacher Self Assessment Tool (TSAT), informal assessment and a survey of students to determine grade 4 technology mastery levels. Results are as follows:


School
Number of Teachers in School - 80
Technology Self Assessment Tool (TSAT)
Early Technology - 32%
Developing Technology - 39%
Proficient - 16%
Advanced - 14%

Teacher Technology Use Survey
Use of Technology for Professional Activities:
Daily - 49%
Once a Week - 35%
Once a Month - 12%
Never/Rarely - 4%

Use of Technology with Students:
Daily - 39%
Once a Week - 27%
Once a Month - 17%
Never/Rarely - 17%


Goals

Ø       Tantasqua/Union 61 Shared Goals

o        All school WAN connections were upgraded to at least T1 bandwidth in FY06.

o        Improve network security

o        Expand and improve the district-wide web site, including teacher pages, school committee information, building use information and other information useful to the member communities

o        Implement computer-based assessment tools for math and reading

o        Provide increased and ongoing professional development for administrative staff responsible for DOE reporting

o        Provide increased and ongoing technology professional development for teaching staff

o        Coordinate licensing for commonly used software

o        Explore alternative means of funding

o        Explore alternative methods of technology procurement such as freeware and donations

o        Internet equipment that was more than five years old was replaced as part of the WAN and Internet upgrade project. This equipment is currently being provided by the vendor as part of the contracted services. This was completed in early FY06.

o        Continue to improve the centralized accounting and human resources system for increased efficiency and cost-effective operation

o        Upgrade the district web and mail server for increased efficiency, cost-effective operation and network security. This project is scheduled to be implemented in the second have of FY06 with additional improvements planned for FY07. Current project activities include migration from Ipswitch Imail to Microsoft Exchange and the consolidation of multiple, building-based Active Directory domains into a single Active Directory domain for the entire K-12 organization.

Ø       Materials and Services to be procured through the ERATE Program

o        Upgrade WAN Internet access lines to T1 or better bandwidth at the following locations:

§         Three 56k Point-to-Point Leased lines at Brookfield, Holland and Wales were replaced with cable-based connections of T1 bandwidth.

o        Upgrade existing Internet routers which are five years old and are necessary for Internet connectivity including four BayNetworks ARN Routers and eight CSU/DSU. These routers were replaced by Fortinet devices and a Cisco Catalyst switch provided by the vendor as part of the contracted services.

o        Upgrade the district web/mail server. A new file server was purchased in FY06 to accommodate the new Microsoft Exchange mail server.

o        Replace existing T1 point-to-point leased line between Brimfield and Fiskdale with a more cost-effective solution. Completed first quarter FY06.

o        Continue existing Internet access services that provide sufficient bandwidth to four locations - Brimfield, Sturbridge, Tantasqua HS/Tech Division and Tantasqua JRHS. Migrate all Internet access and WAN services from leased point-to-point circuits to cable network. This was completed in the first quarter of FY06.

o        Research the feasibility of contracting a new Internet Service Provider. Vendors will be sought for FY07..

o        Implement a more robust email system using Microsoft Exchange Server. Obtain all necessary hardware, software and consulting services necessary for implementation.

o        Purchase and implement a more robust firewall and content filtering system. Obtain all necessary hardware, software and consulting services necessary for implementation. A Sonicwall firewall was purchased for this purpose.

o        For FY07 the school organization will continue with the network infrastructure put into place in FY06. This included the implementation of a cable-based wide area network (WAN) with a single access point to the ISP. This network configuration provides a single monitoring and content filtering point which is cost effective and efficient. New equipment will not be sought as it is provided by the vendor. This will be expected of any vendor who submits a proposal in response to our FY07 ERATE Form 470.

District and School specific goals; principals, tech specialists, library media specialists, technology department

2004-2007 Goals

• Increase the integration of technology into curriculum units at each grade level in an effort to increase student achievement. (The survey of "Technology Use with Students", shows a 22% increase in the daily use of technology)
• Provide professional development in the use of online research tools
• Increase the number of websites created by teachers
• Continue Mentoring and peer teaching
• Continue afterschool professional development (2 hours per week)
• Implement the use of GradeQuick for daily classroom record-keeping.
• (Installed software on the network FY 05)
• Offer professional development to Grade 5 and 6 staff  in the use of GradeQuick
• Increase the classroom use of multi-media presentation systems
• Provide professional development in the integration of "unitedstreaming"
• Upgrade library automation hardware, software and workstations.
• Expand the network into newly created classrooms, preferably using wireless technology. Installed wireless technology into the 2 newly created classrooms (Completed FY05)
• Administration of STAR assessment by classroom teachers (Originally implemented in FY05, ongoing for all subsequent fiscal years)
• Increase the awareness and implementation of universal design
  
  Professional Development

• After-school technology professional development is offered, 2 hours weekly. The format is based on individual teacher needs to better enable them to integrate technology into their daily professional and teaching activities and to meet a variety of goals: those stated above, district, school and individual.
• Coaching and mentoring continues to be offered by building-based technology staff on an on-going basis.
• Teachers received professional development in the areas of: universal design, Renaissance Reading and Math Assessments, web design, united streaming, integration in the curriculum, multimedia
• A District Technology Committee consisting of district support personnel, technology specialists and library/media specialists chaired by the Technology Director. This committee develops the technology plans, technology standards documentation in compliance with the DOE Instructional Technology Standards and discusses technology professional development that may be implemented by the school district. This group has been instrumental in bringing technology professional development to staff to increase both professional and classroom use of technology.

Combined, total professional development hours for Burgess Elementary School was 434.3 hours. 75% of professional staff received some type of formal technology professional development. On-going professional development, including coaching, mentoring and after-school sessions, reached 100% of staff. 11% of staff took an online course. 100% of staff received any type of technology professional development in the past year and for at least one of the previous three years. Categories for technology professional development included 53% computer applications, 45% for integrating technology into the curriculum and 2% for maintenance, repair and network operations.

 

Technology professional development for FY07 will continue in several areas.  Professional Development will continue to be provided two hours weekly after school in order to enable teachers to better integrate technology into their daily professional and teaching activities and to meet the goals presented in the plan.  The technology instructor and instructional assistant will continue to mentor and coach those who seek their assistance.  It is projected that teachers will have more mobile lap tops available for classroom use enabling teachers to better utilize STAR Reading and Math Assessments, web design, united streaming and multimedia technology uses in the classroom. Through professional development, teachers will become more familiar with kurzweil technology.   The continuing effort to upgrade and maintain the school web site will give more teachers the opportunity to post their web sites on the school site. The increasing use of online instruction for teacher professional development will open more technology options to teachers as we move ahead.

Needs Assessment

Current Status

• Telecommunications and Internet - The school is connected to the district Internet Portal via a T1 point-to-point leased line
• Hardware -Current hardware configurations are as follows:

Instructional A-68; B-49; C-53 (June 2005)

Administrative A-12; B-6; C-5

• Multi-Media Presentation Systems-17 stationary, 1 mobile
• Software - school based
• 85 copies of Microsoft Office for instructional computers
• Type to Learn3 site license Purchased (FY06)
• Sagebrush InfoCenter 5.0  library automation (Purchased FY 05)
• Site license for Grade Quick  (Purchased FY 05)

Needs over three years including current fiscal year

• Telecommunications and Internet; Improve network perimeter security by adding a second layer of spam filtering in addition to current content filtering, firewall and email spam filtering functions. Review current ISP services and determine the most cost effective and reliable solution.
• Plans are to continue the use of the WAN connections for Internet and email via a single point of access terminating at the Jr. High School building. If the current vendor is contracted for FY07 all equipment and services will remain the same.
• Hardware - school based
• Increase the number of A level computers for classroom use (20)
• Increase the number of multi-media presentation system in the classroom
• Software - School and Classroom based
• Increase copies of Microsoft Office for instructional computers (30 more)
• Purchase 14 A level computers for Library/Media Center 
• Purchase 25 wireless laptops
• Purchase 2 new servers: 1 for Library/Media Center, 1 for Educational software and files, intranet, etc
• Implement four B level donated computers in the administrative area for activities related to the student information system and DOE reporting requirements (FY06)
• Plan for additional computer purchases in FY07 dependent on funding availability

   

Evaluation

Ø       Evaluation Process

o        Review the technology plan annually to determine if goals are being met and what tasks need to be addressed to accomplish this.

o        Plan evaluation for FY05 took place on September 20, 2005 to review status and accomplishments.

o        The plan will be reviewed in the spring of 2006 to determine if goals are being met and if modifications are required to meet FY07 projected goals.

Ø       Corrective Action Plan

o        Modify the plan annually.

o        Plan modification for FY06 took place on September 20, 2005. Modifications are noted in parentheses.

o        Recommended plan modifications per the planned spring 2006 evaluation will be incorporated into the existing and subsequent plans.