Education

Free tutors, workshops, and cold hard cash gets more parents involved in Guilford County

As research suggests, students do better in school when their families are more actively involved in their education. Students with engaged parents traditionally have better attendance, a more positive attitude, and higher rates of graduation than peers with less support.
In an effort to encourage this involvement, North Carolina’s Guilford County Schools has taken several innovative steps—such as offering free online tutoring to every family, as well as online videos and face-to-face training in the workplace to show parents how they can support their children’s success. The district also allows certain parent volunteers to earn a cash incentive for participating.
“We’re doing whatever we can to get parents engaged and involved,” said Chief of Staff Nora Carr.
A few years ago, Guilford County formed a task force to come up with ideas for boosting parent engagement. The district also surveyed parents to find out what their biggest needs were. These efforts led to the formation of the Guilford Parent Academy (GPA) in 2011, a multifaceted parent engagement initiative that is partly supported by federal Race to the Top money.
Free online tutoring
GPA Director Lindsay Whitley said many parents want to support their children’s learning at home, but often they don’t have the resources they need to do so. To fill this need, the district is paying to make a live online tutoring service from Brainfuse available to parents at no cost.
“We thought: What better way to support parents … than giving them 24-7 access to a live online tutor to help their kids at home?” Whitley said. “Now, parents know that if their child is having trouble with algebra homework at 9 o’clock at night, and they don’t know how to help, they can get an instant response. That’s pretty powerful.”
The tutoring, which is available for a wide range of subject areas, occurs through a live online chat session with a subject matter expert, and the platform includes a virtual whiteboard tool in which the tutor and student can work out a problem together. “The tutors don’t give students the answers; they help students work through problems on their own,” Whitley said.
Felicia Andrews is the parent of a sixth-grader at Eastern Guilford Middle School. “I attended school many years ago, so when my daughter needed help on topics like finding the least common multiple in math, that was something that escaped me,” she said. “It’s priceless to be able to have a tutor whenever you need one—and what’s even greater is that we don’t have to pay for it.”
On the go
Online tutoring isn’t the only educational service that Guilford County makes available to families free of charge. The district also provides access to a large library of e-books for students and their families. “We’re trying to address the opportunity gap,” Carr said.
What’s more, Guilford County has partnered with Connect with Kids to provide video content that helps parents support their children’s learning. The videos cover topics such as how to make sure you’re not overscheduling your child, or how to recognize when your child is being bullied—and Guilford County shows these videos on its local cable TV station and makes them available to parents on the GPA website.
The GPA program also offers face-to-face workshops for parents to address similar topics, such as how to talk to your children about risky behaviors, or how to plan for and apply to college.
“Many parents want to attend these sessions, but they have to work,” Whitley said. “We thought: How can we make this content available to parents who can’t attend an in-person session?”
To solve this problem, Guilford County launched the “GPA on the Go” program, in which it delivers face-to-face sessions for parents at their workplace. The district has partnered with about two dozen companies that employ large numbers of parents, including Polo-Ralph Lauren, to offer the workshops on site during employees’ lunch breaks.
“It’s our way of reaching parents where they are,” Whitley said.
Michelle Gill-Moffat is the youth development director for the City of Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department. She works with the district to plan and deliver GPA on the Go sessions to city employees.
“I hear great feedback from the parents who attend,” she said. “They’ll say, ‘This is perfect, because I don’t have time [to attend a class] when I get home.’ There’s soccer practice, or Brownies, or what not—and they don’t have time to go back out to yet another [event] at night. By attending during their lunch break, they’re still able to get that information.”
Parent liaisons
With a staff of only four employees serving 72,000 students and their families, the Guilford Parent Academy relies on a team of “parent liaisons” to help spread the word about its various programs. These parent volunteers “are an extension of our office,” Whitley said. “They know how to reach out to other parents in ways we don’t think of.”
Last year, Andrews served as a parent liaison at her daughter’s elementary school. “I did outreach within the parent community to make sure they were getting information they needed,” she said. She made a bulletin board that parents could see as they entered the school, set up tables at afterschool events, and spread news to other parents via social media.
Andrews said she spent up to 20 hours per month in this volunteer role. That’s a lot of hours, and school systems often struggle to find volunteers who can take that much time from their hectic schedules. To help solve this challenge, Guilford County allows its parent liaisons to earn a small cash incentive of up to $150 per month in exchange for their time and the completion of certain tasks.
“This helps reduce the barriers to participating,” Carr said.
The program began with a grassroots parent coordinator at each middle school. It proved so successful that the district expanded it to every Title I school with the help of Title I money.
Volunteering as a parent liaison is something that Andrews would have done regardless of the cash incentive—but the money was “highly appreciated,” she said. It also reimbursed her for what she spent out of her own pocket in service to the district.
An independent evaluation of the GPA program released this year concluded that it has heightened parent engagement significantly. “Participation in programs and activities has increased each year since its inception,” the report noted. “Since January 2011, there has been a 212 percent increase in GPA participation.”
“We’ve continued to build on the idea of a department created by parents, for parents,” Whitley said. Citing a direct correlation between parent engagement and student achievement, he concluded: “That is why we do what we do.”
The former Editor in Chief of eSchool News, Dennis Pierce is now a freelance writer covering education and technology. Reach him at denniswpierce@gmail.com.

New service outsources asset management to company

A new offering from Follett is letting schools outsource operational activities — what it calls “routine and seasonal tasks” — in a bid to help school admins and staff save time and space.
According to the company, the customized program, called Managed Services, “provides valuable outsourced services for administrators when they’re lacking the resources — staffing, facilities or time — to efficiently and effectively run their district.”
Many of the tasks have to do with asset management, and include:

• Locating, counting, and barcoding school assets, and doing physical inventories on-site.
• Ordering and logging new assets, like textbooks, and distributing them throughout a district.
• Helping schools open, shutter, or relocate school buildings and move materials, such as library books.
• Store various assets at off-site warehouses.

Follett has already rolled out the service in a handful of pilots and is now expanding.
Material from a press release was used in this report.

Free resource for K-12 school, district administrators aims to help them navigate the procurement process

LearnBop, a web-based interactive K-12 math learning system, has released a free eBook, The Administrator’s Guide to EdTech Purchasing, created in partnership with Superintendent John Carver of the Howard-Winneshiek district in Cresco, Iowa.
Billions are spent every year on purchasing education technology, but agreed-upon best practices and processes around procurement vary.
This eBook is meant to set out a clear process, and also to provide tips, resources, and follow-up links to other quality information to help administrators go through the three main steps of procurement—identifying the problem to be solved; identifying technology to solve the problem; and then vetting and implementing that technology.
“Administrators are constantly bombarded with budgeting and other decisions, which can make it difficult to navigate edtech procurement in a clear, consistent manner,” says LearnBop’s School Services Coordinator Zacc Dukowitz, who helped write the eBook. “As a mathematics education technology company, we think its crucial that purchasers have all of the information they need to make a decision that’s right for the needs of their community. That’s why we created this resource in partnership with Superintendent Carver, to provide a framework administrators can follow when it comes to edtech procurement.”
Superintendent Carver was one of the first signers of the Office of Education Technology’s Future Ready Pledge, which was created to help move education into the 21st century. Additionally, he was one of 100 superintendents from around the US invited to the White House as part of the Future Ready initiative. His district, Howard-Winneshiek, was named “25 District Worth Visiting” by Tom Vander Ark, CEO of “Getting Smart.” Superintendent Carver’s writing on edtech procurement has appeared in eSchool News, and those same writings appear as subsections in this new eBook.
“Because they’re so busy, when it comes to procuring education technology administrators can often end up going after the shiniest object instead of the one that will best serve their students,” says Superintendent Carver. “This isn’t because they don’t care, but simply because they’re overwhelmed with decisions to make and don’t have established best practices. This eBook is a big step toward correcting that.”
LearnBop became involved in the project, ultimately creating The Administrator’s Guide to EdTech Purchasing eBook, after speaking to a number of superintendents and other administrators who shared the feeling that there was not enough information and established best practices widely available around the entire purchasing process.
“Every day we’re trying to provide valuable resources and information for educators and administrators,” says LearnBop founder and CEO Bharani Rajakumar. “Usually our resources are focused on mathematics, because that is our specialty, but in this case, we saw a real need and wanted to create a resource that could help K-12 administrators all over the country. Partnering with Superintendent Carver, we knew we’d be able to create something that would really be helpful.”
To learn more, or to download the eBook, you can go to The Administrator’s Guide to EdTech Purchasing website now.
Material from a press release was used in this report.

As we consume more social media, our perspectives are getting less diverse. That’s a problem — for us and for students

Ed. note: Innovation In Action is a new monthly column from the International Society of Technology in Education focused on exemplary practices in education.
Once, while living in Santa Barbara, a small but jolting earthquake hit close to home. I went directly to Yahoo and Google to see what I could learn. Surprisingly, I could not find any useful links or information. So, I turned to Facebook, where my news feed was overflowing with comments, links, and resources about the earthquake.
Since then, I’ve started using Facebook and Twitter to learn about all kinds of recent events and news happening nearby and around the world. And I’m not the only one using social media sites in this way. According to the Pew Research Center, more than 50 percent of American adults get their news from social media sites, and this percentage is much higher for Millennials.
It turns out there’s a reason behind the trend. One of the benefits of getting the news from your digital networks is that you don’t have to search for, or filter through, various news sites to find the news that is most important to you. Facebook friends and the people you follow on Twitter often have similar interests, opinions, and attitudes as you. So when someone from your digital network shares a news story, you’re more likely to be interested in reading it compared to the other stories that you come across on news sites. This saves you time and energy and also allows you to stay up-to-date on the latest news.
Or does it?
Did you hear about the multiple black churches that were set on fire in the south after the Charleston shooting? Or, did you hear about the police shooting of the unarmed Native American, Corey Kanosh? What about the fact that the Los Angeles City Council approved a law that encouraged authorities to seize and destroy the property of homeless people?
Too many people are getting hurt and too many lives are being destroyed and we often don’t even hear about these events. At the 2015 Digital Media and Learning Conference, Van Jones made a poignant comment, “We pretend to have diversity in the United States. We don’t. We have bubbles that touch.” This is exactly what is happening in social media sites. We cultivate networks of people who are like us and who share the same news articles that we would share. When people who are very different than us are hurt or hurting we may not even realize it because we live and learn in a bubble.
However, social media can be more than a space for likeminded individuals to connect, it can be a game changer (think Ice Bucket Challenge or #YesAllWomen). It can enlighten people, encourage conversations, and facilitate action. It can be the place where, together, we redefine what “mainstream media” is and who controls information and knowledge.
The first step in using social media as a tool to create change is gaining awareness. Awareness of who is or isn’t in your network. Awareness of the resources that you can use to expand your knowledge and access diverse perspectives. Awareness of how mainstream media is skewing ideas and concealing events that may not be of interest to the “general public.”
Next, we all need to actively seek out diverse perspectives, ideas, and people to join our networks. Diversity is essential for innovation and transformation. This can easily be done with social media by following Twitter hashtags (e.g., #blacktwitter, #climatechange, #LatinosUnidos, #autismawareness), following grassroots media sites on Facebook and Twitter, and by joining social media groups and discussion forums that challenge your perspective and knowledge.
And, finally, it is important to start asking questions and engaging in critical conversations—should Los Angeles authorities be allowed to take away the makeshift homes of homeless people? Why is the media only focusing on the negative riots in Baltimore? Why are so many unarmed minorities being shot by police? What are we doing to address climate change?
Feigning ignorance is no longer an option. Social media sites provide a multitude of ways to break out of your bubble, connect with individuals with diverse perspectives, and create lasting change that can improve the lives of many people.
The ISTE Standards for Students recommends that teachers provide opportunities for students to:

• Develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures.
• Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.
• Identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation.
• Use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions.

These are standards that encourage awareness, diverse perspectives, critical thinking, and problem solving.
In the age of social media learning, it is essential for both teachers and students to develop digital citizenship skills in order to become critical consumers, distributors, and producers of the news. In his book, Digital Citizenship in Schools, Mike Ribble identified digital literacy, digital communication, and digital etiquette as three of the nine elements of digital citizenship. According to Ribble, it’s important for teachers and students to understand how information is exchanged in social media sites (digital communication), how to learn in a digital society (digital literacy), and how to identify the rules and norms that shape knowledge in social media sites (digital etiquette). These three skills can help individuals become more informed and mindful social media users who know how to evaluate popular news, identify gaps, seek out diverse perspectives, and ask thought-provoking questions.
Now it’s your turn. Scan your Facebook and Twitter feeds and examine the news articles that your friends and followers post. Who are the people sharing these articles? Do your friends and followers seem to share the same type of news? Do they share news from the same outlets? What types of questions come to mind as you read these articles? How can you engage in critical conversations about the information presented in these articles? How might you find articles that present different perspectives?
Answering these questions will help you develop your digital citizenship skills and become a more informed consumer of the news. The next step is to think about how you can help your students develop these same skills.

National Policy Board approves refreshed guidelines that hope to help educational leaders improve student achievement

New professional standards for educational leaders aim to ensure district and school leaders are able to improve student achievement and meet new, higher expectations.
The National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA) voted unanimously to approve the new, refreshed 2015 Professional Standards for Educational Leaders, formerly known as ISLLC standards.
“The 2015 standards take a huge stride toward clarifying the administrator’s role and connecting that role directly to student learning,” said JoAnn D. Bartoletti, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and NPBEA chair. “A highly collaborative and inclusive process resulted in a high-quality set of standards that can potentially transform principal preparation and evaluation programs across the country.”
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) worked closely with other members of NPBEA for more than a year to refresh the ISLLC standards, which were first published in 1996 and last updated in 2008. Since June 2014, the two groups have held two public comment periods, conducted numerous focus groups and established a 13-member working group to synthesize this feedback from the field and finalize the standards.
The standards include a stronger, clearer emphasis on students and student learning and describe foundational principles of leadership than can help to make sure every child is well-educated and prepared for the 21st century, with a strong emphasis on educational equity.
The updated standards also elevate areas of work for educational leaders that were once not well understood or deemed less relevant but have since been shown to contribute to student learning, such as managing change within schools and creating cultures of continuous improvement. In addition, one standard describes the ethical obligations of educational leaders.
“A school leader’s day-to-day work is dramatically different since the first release of these standards in 1996. Twenty years later, I am pleased to see CCSSO and other members of NPBEA have updated the standards to reflect what school leaders face each and every day. While maintaining a clear focus on equity, these standards now outline what it takes to be an instructional leader and an effective building manager in today’s school,” said Chris Minnich, executive director of CCSSO.
These approved standards also could challenge the profession, professional associations, policy makers, institutions of higher education and other organizations that support educational leaders and their development to move beyond established practices and systems and strive for a better future.
The standards are voluntary. States, districts, schools and university and nonprofit leadership preparation programs use the standards to guide preparation, practice, support and evaluations for district and school leaders, including superintendents, principals, assistant principals and teacher leaders. Most states adapt them to meet local needs.
The standards were refined after two extensive rounds of public input, including responses from more than 1,000 principals and superintendents, that gathered perspectives from across the field. A number of experts also made valuable contributions to the project, including the co-chairs of the 13-member working group: Beverly Hutton, deputy executive director of programs/services at NASSP, and Mark Smylie, professor emeritus, University of Illinois at Chicago and visiting professor of Leadership, Policy and Organizations at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University.
The final standards will be published in November. The Wallace Foundation provided $1 million in support to CCSSO over two years for the leadership standards work.
Material from a press release was used in this report.

Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools members partner with other leading educators, entrepreneurs, and researchers from across the U.S.

Twenty-two new school districts have been accepted into the League of Innovative Schools, a national coalition of forward-thinking school districts organized by Digital Promise, an independent, bipartisan nonprofit organization authorized by Congress to accelerate innovation in education.
The League of Innovative Schools, launched in late 2011, accepts new members through an open application process once per year. With the new members, the League now includes 73 school districts in 33 states, representing 3.2 million students. The full list of members can be found at digitalpromise.org/districts. A list of the 22 new districts being added is also available via a blog post from the league.
“The League’s goal is to find leaders pioneering bold, creative, and student-centric practices, connect them with each other, and amplify what they do best so others can learn,” said Sara Schapiro, director of the Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools. “With these new members, we add a wealth of insights, ideas, and energy to help our members effectively support teaching and learning through technology.”
League members are represented by their superintendent, who commits to:
● Attend biannual League meetings, which feature classroom visits, collaborative problem-solving, and relationship-building with peers and partners
● Join working groups on a broad range of topics relevant to the changing needs of school districts
● Engage with entrepreneurs to advance product development and meet district needs
● Support research that expands what we know about teaching and learning
● Participate in the League’s professional learning community by connecting with other members online, in person, and at each other’s school districts
In addition to superintendents’ participation, there are also opportunities for other school administrators, principals, and teachers to participate in League and Digital Promise initiatives.
“It is an honor for Oxnard Union to be identified by the Linked Learning Alliance, the Partnership for the 21 Century Learning, the Future Ready Schools, and now the League of Innovative Schools for the efforts of our leadership team in transforming teaching and learning to support our students and community,” said Dr. Gabe Soumakian, whose district is one of the 22 being added to the league.
The League will officially welcome new members at its fall 2015 meeting on Oct. 25-27 in Pittsburgh. The meeting will host about 175 national school leaders and prominent education experts, entrepreneurs, and officials, with the goal of addressing shared priorities and setting goals that district leaders will pursue throughout the year.
For more information on the Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools (including how to request information about applying) visit: digitalpromise.org/league.
Material from a press release was used in this report.

Tech and 21st century collaboration and creativity change age-old school cliches

In the middle of changing times for the K-12 LMS, some administrators wonder if it’s time for an update

Learning management systems (LMS) are facing changing times, as many K-12 administrators evaluate how their current LMS fits into teaching and learning goals.
The K-12 LMS is quickly becoming one of the main gears that churns day-to-day operations in classrooms and in districts across the nation.
Edsby, a K-12 LMS that connects students, teachers and parents using modern technologies, has developed a checklist to support administrators weighing the benefits of implementing a modern LMS district-wide, or in the evaluation of current systems.
As the pace of modernization in education quickens, some districts risk being held back because their LMSs are slow to evolve with today’s technologies – assuming they even have an official district LMS to begin with.
Here’s a summary of the five signs administrators need to update their K-12 LMS, according to Edsby:
1. It’s not social: Systems that create safe and secure spaces mimicking the look of popular social media channels are attractive to students, teachers and parents.
2. It doesn’t play well with other systems: Seamless integration with other systems, such as a district’s student information system (SIS), makes integration of a modern K-12 LMS easy and powerful.
3. It’s one-size-fits all: No two districts are the same, so why adopt a rigid system that may have been built for higher education when administrators can implement a next-generation, customizable K-12 LMS that meets their specific needs as a K-12 institution?
4. It makes more work for teachers: If teachers are constantly wrestling with the LMS, or having to manage their own personal LMSs, it becomes more of a distraction than a timesaving tool.
5. It’s outdated: Modern technology has come a long way since the turn of the century when most legacy systems were designed. Today’s systems are more intuitive and offer a friendlier user experience, which is particularly important for young students.
Download the full checklist here.
“An LMS is the foundation of teaching and learning,” said Scott Welch, vice president of sales at Edsby. “An LMS should be as dynamic as the district it serves. As schools continue to modernize, administrators need to ensure their systems can address schools’ needs today and are also capable of adopting to tomorrow’s challenges.”
Material from a press release was used in this report.

A career academy high school puts 21st century skills to the test with on-the-job training

North of Los Angeles, not far from the city of Ventura, the brand new Rancho Campana High School sits on a California campus fit for the set of a teen movie, where spacious, airy classrooms open — via retractable glass-paneled garage doors — onto sun soaked courtyards and outdoor learning spaces with sweeping views of the neighboring Camarillo Hills. It’s a place where all the furniture is on casters, to be reconfigured with ease, and where every building boasts a computer lab and a media commons.
If the $77 million campus, completed earlier this summer, is stunning, it’s nothing compared to what’s going on inside. Following a novel college and career readiness model, Rancho Campana divides itself into separate learning academies, designed to immerse students in one of three distinct career fields: arts and entertainment, health services, and applied engineering.
The school is obviously the newest showpiece of the Oxnard Union High School District, but it’s also of a continuation of the work began four years ago by then-newly arrived superintendent Dr. Gabe Soumakian, who has always cast an eye toward the future. “When I got here in 2011, that was one of my first projects,” Soumakian said. “To really think about the learning space that we were going to create, and the tools and resources we’d need.”

CoSN’s Annual Infrastructure Survey outlines state of school connectivity in U.S. districts

School leaders said affordability remains the top barrier to robust internet connectivity in their schools, according to the Consortium for School Networking’s (CoSN) 3rd Annual Infrastructure Survey released November 3.
Improving network speed and capacity and increasing competition for broadband services remain significant challenges to districts as well, the survey reveals.
The results also detail the impact of changes to the E-rate program, as well as the growing issue of digital equity for technology access outside of the classroom.
“Education is going digital. Yet school system technology leaders face many challenges as they plan their education networks for the future. While progress is happening, policymakers and educators will need to keep their eyes focused on continued investments in robust, reliable education networks with broadband access and wi-fi to enable digital learning and address issues of digital equity,” said Keith Krueger, CEO, CoSN.
1. Cost
For the third consecutive year, nearly half of surveyed school systems identify the cost of ongoing recurring expenses as the biggest barrier to robust school connectivity. More than one-third of surveyed districts said that capital or upfront expenses are also a challenge to increasing robust internet connectivity.
Approximately one out of five school systems are paying $50/Mbps or more per month for their internet connection, and 18 percent pay the same high amount for their WAN connection.
Despite these affordability challenges, there are some positive trends. Internet connection affordability improved since last year, as 36 percent of surveyed school systems indicated their monthly cost per Mbps for internet connection was less than $5 per Mbps – up from 27 percent in 2014. Additionally, school systems with high monthly costs (over $50 per Mbps) for internet bandwidth decreased from 32 percent in 2014 to 19 percent in 2015.
Other major school connectivity challenges reported by school leaders regarding network speed and capacity, competition, E-rate changes, and digital equity include:
2. Network Speed & Capacity
• Inadequate Connection Speeds: Nearly a quarter of all school systems have reached only 10 percent of the Federal Communications Commission’s short-term broadband connectivity goal (100 Mbps per 1000 students).
• Inability to Offer Broadband: For 12 percent of all school leaders and 14 percent of rural school system leaders, their internet providers are at capacity and cannot offer additional bandwidth. Furthermore, one in 10 of those surveyed report that their own transport connection type was at capacity.
• Not Using Current Wireless Standards: One out of three school systems indicated that they do not use current wireless industry standards (such as 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac).
• Inadequate Internet Bandwidth: More than two-thirds of school systems do not have sufficient internet bandwidth for today and the coming 18 months. Despite the current state, one out of four school systems projected between 100 percent and 499 percent Internet growth.
• Internet Downtime: One out of four school systems reported unplanned internet downtime in their school system for at least three days during the year.
There was improvement in some areas of network speed & capacity:
• Expanding Use of Lit Fiber: More than 70 percent of school system leaders indicated that they are using lit fiber for transport types for WAN operations, a dramatic one-year increase from 46 percent in 2014. This means many more schools have the capacity to provide broadband speeds to the school door.
• Improving Wide Area Network Connection Speeds: Nearly six in 10 reported WAN speeds of 1 Gbps or more, a modest improvement from 53 percent in 2014.
• More Schools Have Faster Wireless Access Points: More than 60 percent of school systems reported typical connection speed of fast 1 Gbps access, slightly more than half in 2014.
• Increased Confidence in Wireless Connectivity: Up from 58 percent in 2014, two-thirds of school systems indicated their WiFi could handle a 1:1 initiative (28 percent very confident and 38 percent somewhat confident).
3. Lack of Competition
• Persisting Problem Coast-to-Coast: Nearly half of surveyed school systems (though down from 60 percent in 2014) indicated that lack of competition is a problem for school connectivity, often with only one internet provider serving rural districts. Without multiple providers, it is difficult for school systems to have a redundancy plan.
• Few Qualified Bids: Nearly one-third of surveyed school systems received one or fewer qualified bids for E-rate connectivity services in 2015 (Category 1).
• Challenge Amplified in Rural Areas: Lack of competition is more severe in rural school systems, with more than one-third having received one or fewer proposals for school connectivity services.
4. Impact of E-rate Changes
• Perspectives on Modernized E-rate: Nearly half of district leaders had positive views on the changes to the E-rate program to focus on broadband and LAN/Wi-Fi.
• Phase Down of POTS Affecting School Systems: Nine in 10 surveyed district leaders reported that the phase down of the plain old telephone service (POTS) significantly affected or at least somewhat affected their school system.
5. Rising Digital Inequity
• Lack of Digital Equity Strategies: Three out of four school systems do not have any off-campus strategies for connecting students at home and after school.
• Unaffordable Internet and Limited Service at Home: Overwhelmingly, 88 percent of school system leaders believe that cost was the biggest barrier for families who do not have internet access at home. Additionally, more than 40 percent of households do not have ready access to broadband service.
Gathering more than 530 responses from district leaders across 48 states, the survey results represent urban, rural, and suburban school systems as well as large, medium, and small school systems with different needs and priorities.
Conducted in partnership with AASA, The School Superintendents Association, and MDR, the report collected data from K-12 school leaders and technology directors nationwide.
To read the full results, please visit: cosn.org/Infrastructure2015.
Material from a press release was used in this report.

Library media specialists and IT teams can work toward a common mission

Information technology (IT) departments in the K-12 environment have historically operated as their own separate entities, making decisions about, providing support for, and overseeing the successful implementation of hardware and software on campus. With more and more technology infiltrating classrooms, the IT team’s role has shifted to include more interaction and collaboration with other departments, administrators, and individual instructors.
As purveyors of digital learning materials and research, library media specialists are aligning with their IT departments to help create dynamic, engaging hubs for students and instructors. At Henrico County Public Schools in Henrico, Va., Suzanna Panter said the 50,000-student, 70-school district was an early one-to-one laptop adopter and, as such, relies on strong ties between its media and IT departments.
Panter, who is the district’s educational specialist, library services, actually has an employee who serves as a go-between for the library and the IT department. “At the library, we’re completely instructional in nature,” Panter explains, “so we don’t see eye-to-eye with IT on every issue.” During a 2015 migration to Microsoft Office 365, for example, Panter says her department had concerns about the proposed single sign-on (SSO) process, which automatically signs a user into his or her email account once signed onto Office 365.
Panter said this is just one example of how school libraries have different technology needs than other campus departments. “It’s wonderful for most users, but our library assistants don’t have their own computers,” Panter explained. “They need to log into email to check for inter-library loans, for example, but with single sign-on they wouldn’t be able to do that (i.e., the computers are logged in as ‘library user,’ for access to the circulation system).” Working with the IT department, the library came up with a work-around that includes the use of Office 365 but not SSO.

It’s more than a rebrand of “principal.” It’s a philosophical overhaul

Ed. note: In partnership with Lesson Planet, we asked their professional development resource arm, PD Learning Network, for the most popular videos on their site. We’ll be featuring a limited number of these, one a week, each Monday.
When Todd Nesloney was tapped to become lead learner at Webb Elementary, in Navasota, Texas, it could legitimately be called a true learning experience. Having never before served at the head of a school, he literally stepped right out of the classroom to take the job — at a time when the entire campus was going project-based.
At Webb, where about 75 percent of students are on free or reduced lunch, sinking test scores and references to a “failing school” led to low morale among parents and staff. When he took the job, Nesloney technically became the school’s principal, but echoing a growing trend he opted to downplay that title, preferring lead learner instead. Partly, it’s meant to highlight the fact that he, like everyone else at the school, was growing and learning as they navigated change.
“One of the stipulations I had when taking this role was I still want to be actively involved in the classroom,” Nesloney said. “I want to team teach, I want to fill in for teachers, I want to be with those kids. I don’t want to be stuck in an office.”
As a project-based school, Webb has been re-imagined with collaboration in mind. Whole group instruction has been shelved in favor of  goal-oriented learning, where teachers supervise as students solve problems in small groups. Technology is involved, especially when used to help kids actively create something, but it’s not necessarily a part of everything.
As a leader, Nesloney aims to be visible and to encourage teachers and students to take risks along with him. “I want them to fail, but I want them to learn from the failure.”
“We want a school where the kids feel valued,” he said. “We want them beating down the doors in the morning and crying when they have to leave in the afternoon.”

Teach students to think like entrepreneurs with these skill sets

Since the publication of his highly impactful book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Friedman has been teaching his readers and listeners to think differently about our world and how we interact with each other. Friedman consistently talks about new skill sets that are required for anyone who wants to not only survive but truly thrive in the hyper-connected world that is life in the 21st century.
Educators have been tackling a new mindset for student learning for nearly two decades. In the early 2000s, when as a nation as we sat at the dawn of the 21st century, The Partnership for 21st Century Learning (formerly The Partnership for 21st Century Skills) introduced the education community to a Framework for 21st Century Learning, which highlighted 18 different skills. Over time leaders from a broad spectrum of business and education communities narrowed the focus to concentrate on a set of skills that came to be known as the 4Cs—communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.
The goal was to have the 4Cs integrated with the “3Rs” that had served as the backbone of American curricula for centuries. As the K-12 education community continues the work of embedding the 4Cs into all content areas, the world continues to evolve and we find ourselves once again considering what it is all students must know and be able to do by the time they graduate from high school.
One organization that has taken on this challenge is Metiri Group, based in Marina Del Rey, California. Metiri Group, through their collaborative project with North Central Regional Education Laboratory, enGauge 21^st Century Skills: Literacy in the Digital Age, helped to define the term “21st century skills” in the context that it is now widely known.
At the core of Metiri Group’s work is the belief that the skills that are necessary to be a successful entrepreneur are the same skills that all students require in order to be voracious, engaged learners. Metiri Group identifies five competencies that are essential to building entrepreneurial skills in all students: Self-Direction; Evidence Based Thinking; Persistence; Calculated Risk Taking; Tolerance for Ambiguity.

Partnership will help ensure secure data integration between LMS, SIS

itslearning has announced a new relationship with Clever to provide seamless and secure data integration between the learning management system and a school’s or district’s student information system (SIS).
Specifically, schools and districts using itslearning can now use the Clever platform to ensure that student enrollment records, staff accounts, and class rosters are quickly integrated and automatically updated. Furthermore, with Clever Instant Login, students can now more easily access the itslearning platform with one click from a secure, individual portal without having to manage multiple usernames and passwords.
Designed specifically for the K-12 sector, itslearning is a cloud-based learning management system (LMS) that enables teachers to more effectively engage today’s “digitally wired” students anytime, anywhere and on any device.
“The purpose of educational technology is all about its ability to enhance the instructional experience for students and teachers,” said itslearning vice president of sales and marketing, Matt Dobosh. “But if students and teachers aren’t able to easily access software programs and digital curriculum then we are keeping them from their respective missions – of differentiated and personalized teaching and learning.”
As a student-centered learning environment, itslearning gives teachers, students and parents access, as appropriate, to course materials, assignments, communities for collaboration, professional development tools and student progress reports. The platform’s seamless integration with existing systems via Clever creates a user-friendly interface that gives teachers a way to share instructional resources, assignments and activities, and assessments with students and parents via personalized dashboards.
At the same time, students have the power to decide how they learn as the solution automatically adapts to support learning styles that offer the best opportunities for success. A proprietary “standards mastery and recommendation engine” facilitates remediation, acceleration and review by automating the recommendation of resources and activities based upon standards mastery assessments. The recommendations are also tailored specifically to the individual learning styles of each student – regardless of age, ability level, interests or special requirements.
“Partnering with exciting and innovative companies like itslearning that empower teachers and enhance learning is Clever’s goal,” said Dan Carroll, chief product officer and co-founder of Clever. “Today, Clever is used by more than a third of K-12 schools in America. Together with itslearning, we can extend the reach of our platforms and improve learning outcomes in even more schools across the country.”
Material from a press release was used in this report.

“Chicago’s Fight to Keep Top Principals” reflects survey results and insights of more than 400 principals

More than 40 percent of surveyed Chicago public school principals plan to leave their positions in the next 3 years, and 25 percent said they plan to leave within the next year–data suggesting that the city is losing its principals too soon, before they can effect change in their schools.
During a City Club of Chicago event downtown on Nov. 3, The Chicago Public Education Fund (The Fund) released a comprehensive report on the state of principal quality in the city’s public schools.
The report, titled Chicago’s Fight to Keep Top Principals, is based on survey results from 423 principals within Chicago’s public schools, representing 65 percent of the city’s district-run and charter school principals.
While The Fund’s data suggest that principal performance peaks around year five, more than 60 percent of Chicago’s public school principals leave before that milestone.
“We are serious about providing world-class public schools for all of Chicago’s students, and we must keep working to create an environment that allows our best leaders to learn, grow and stay,” said Heather Y. Anichini, president and CEO of The Fund. “By listening to principal voices, we can make being a great principal in Chicago a realistic longer-term career.”
Key findings from the report include:
• While 74 percent of participating public school principals are satisfied or extremely satisfied in their roles, they also overwhelmingly say that their jobs are unsustainable.
• 40 percent or more feel unable to organize their school budget, school schedule or curriculum in ways that achieve their schools’ priorities.
• More than 70 percent of public school principals say reducing compliance is one of the top three ways to improve their job satisfaction, twice as many as those who mentioned increased compensation.

Asset management software is keeping track of textbooks and more for districts

Two years ago Consolidated Unit School District 300 in Algonquin, Ill., was facing a pretty daunting challenge across its 26 schools. When it came to recording the inventory of assets like textbooks, some of the district’s numbers were incorrect. “We’d start a new school year thinking that we had the appropriate supplies for our students, only to find out that our inventory system didn’t reflect what we actually had on hand,” said Susan Harkin, chief operating officer for the 26-school, 21,000-student district.
A student who wasn’t matched up with an algebra book, for example, would often have to wait a week or two for it to be ordered and delivered to the classroom. And for some of the outdated books that are no longer being published, the district could spend months trying to hunt down the textbooks. “Students would start the school year without a textbook to refer to for homework,” said Harkin. “It wasn’t a good situation for a district that’s focused on student success.”
Harkin says the schools’ curriculum and instructional personnel were particularly concerned about the gaps that existed between the inventory system and the actual inventory. At the time, D300 was most concerned about textbooks, although it also wanted to improve the tracking of district-owned assets such as tablet computers and musical instruments.
Finances were another driver, says Harkin, who notes that her district spends $2,500 less than the state average per student. “Assets and resources are tight,” she added, “so everyone wants to do his or her part in helping to make sure we’re using our resources efficiently and effectively.”

Share these innovative tech integration tips with your team

Embarking on a technology integration plan or beginning a technology pilot can be daunting. However, mapping out a clear path, being flexible, and communicating the stakeholders can help that plan be successful.
Jeff Downing, an elementary school computer specialist in California’s Fremont Unified School District, offered technology integration tips for administrators and teachers based on his experiences in his own school during a webinar for edWeb’s Digital Citizenship community.
Three years ago, Downing developed basic goals for his school, including providing every classroom with a high-quality projector, finding ways to give every student access to some type of technology each day, and increasing internet access.
At the start of the school year, every classroom in the school began with a high-quality widescreen projector, 62 iPads and 62 Chromebooks are onsite, every teacher will have a laptop, the school’s computer labs will offer 32 updated desktops, and internet access will have tripled.
“Now I feel that we can delve into using the tools and really incorporating digital citizenship into everything that we do,” he said.

A new proposal out of Georgia is betting it is, and supporters hope schools will implement it soon

2 companies use data to make it easier for selecting the right college to fit student needs

Unlike the discerning “sorting hat” featured in Harry Potter—which takes its time to analyze every budding wizard’s brain to figure out which of the four houses of Hogwarts is right for him or her—the college selection is a pretty arbitrary process.
Most of the time it’s based on geographic location, availability of specific majors, a family attachment, or even a favorite collegiate sports team. Unless students are proactive about seeking help, most receive very little support in this area; middle schoolers get even less attention.
Yet when 17- or 18-year-old high school graduates get to college, they’re supposed to know not only what they want to do for the next four to five years—but also for the rest of their lives.
“There are so many higher education choices for students to pick from, how are they supposed to make the right selection?” asks Lily Matos DeBlieux, superintendent at the Pendergast Elementary School District in Phoenix. “These decisions are difficult enough for adults, let alone for kids. What if the school isn’t a good fit? What if it’s not a good socioeconomic match? What if the culture isn’t what you thought it would be? These are important questions that can’t be answered by taking a college tour.”
No snap decisions
These things can bog down the average student, who at such a young age really doesn’t understand the long-term implications of his or her decision. “This is a lifetime commitment,” said DeBlieux, “and they need tools that can help them make the best possible decisions.”
A couple of companies are taking a stab at the problem and using technology to help students make better choices when selecting a college. In Washington, D.C., vibeffect has developed an algorithm-based, college-decision framework platform that students and families can use to scientifically narrow down their choices. This “unbiased, fact-based lens” costs $96 (per report) and uses a list of 66 different variables associated with the individual and measures those variables against the features of over 1,000 colleges.
vibeffect’s individual variables include things like whether a prospective applicant has held a job, whether he or she likes working independently or on a team, and if the person is apt to ask for help (or not). On the college side, vibeffect factors in a school’s use of innovative teaching techniques, transportation options, and social opportunities. “Through that,” said Elena Maria Cox, co-founder and CEO, “we’re able to create correlations between an individual and the campus features that will help them thrive.”