← School Committee · 2025-10-28 · School Committee
Report: Technology Plan Update
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
ie Acevedo (Executive Director of Academics and Accountability) and Ms. Jones. Ms. Razi-Thomas acquired about any budgetary implications for the rest of the year, and Ms. Acevedo was invited to speak to the memo. She spoke of the plan next week at the PD day to replace all teachers' aged out laptops with new Chromebooks as part of some free cash allocations, and shared that the committee is looking carefully at program and application 1 budgeting as many technology resources were cut this year. Ms. Acevedo also spoke about the new BYOD program working very well but some concerns with lack of Chromebooks for MCAS testing, so trying to put a plan together to put some devices aside for that time. 4. REPORT OF THE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES There were no student representatives present this evening. 5. CONSENT AGENDA RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Seamus Kelley SECONDER: Margaret Raymond Driscoll AYES: Dorie Withey, Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman ABSENT: Jennifer Grigoraitis Ms. McAndrew requested that the concussion report be removed a
Transcript
▶ 1:44 Speaker 4: Um, thank you Madam Chair. Um, first, um, regarding the personnel report, there's an updated personnel report in your packet. Um, I'd like to highlight that the district still has a few unfilled positions, um, and that all positions, again, as a reminder, other than the two reading specialist positions, were in the approved budget from the spring. So, um, the only actual two new positions that we have, and again, that was, um, for the increase in the chapter 70 funding that we saw and decided to try to meet the needs of all students, um, at both the elementary and the middle school level. I'm really excited to announce that we do have some interviews, um, towards the end of the week for that, um, those two positions. So hopefully we can get those filled pretty soon. Um, and I would be happy to answer any questions you have.
▶ 2:37 Speaker 1: Any questions. Great.
▶ 2:39 Speaker 5: Thank you. Okay,
▶ 2:41 Speaker 4: So next I'll move on to the, um, technology plan update. Um, I would like to thank the members of the technology committee, um, for their hard work and dedication over the last, um, few years with putting all of this together. And especially, um, Melanie Acevedo, who's leading this community committee and I believe also co-chairing, um, with, with Sue Jones as well. So, um, she, Melanie, with the help of the team, has compiled the memo for you. Um, I'm happy to answer any general questions or, or find, you know, the answer to any other questions that you may have, um, regarding the technology plan update.
▶ 3:19 Speaker 1: Mr. Hartman? Go ahead.
▶ 3:20 Speaker 5: Um, another question. I just, I just would thank the team for putting the work they do into this. Um, I know my kids spend a lot of time on screens, but they're learning good lessons at school. I hear about the lessons they're teaching, so thank you for reinforcing them and really, uh, making it a, a, a quality of what we educate with in our, in our buildings. So, thank you.
▶ 3:42 Speaker 1: Anyone else? Questions? Uh, Ms. Rezi, Thomas, go ahead.
▶ 3:45 Speaker 2: I can't help but ask about, um, budgetary implications in the next few months. Do we have, we're okay through this year. Like we have a set plan for this year.
▶ 4:03 Speaker 4: I, I see Melanie, uh, Ms. Acevedo, uh, very, very nicely coming to the mic. Um, 'cause she probably has all the details on this. So Ms. Acevedo, would you like sort of? Yeah.
▶ 4:13 Speaker 6: Um, so we were able to provide, um, next week during PD day, we're gonna be replacing all of our teachers laptops, which have aged out, um, as part of some free cash, um, allocations that was able to be used. Um, we are looking very carefully at the budget with what programs and, and applications we spend our money on. We're making sure that they're well used by educators, that they have a, a strong student impact. Um, we've decreased the number of technology resources that are available, um, in last year's budget as we kind of, um, whittled down that, that $4 million. Um, if, if there aren't additional funds, um, it's gonna be difficult to replace Chromebooks and, and those kinds of things. But, um, in terms of the products that we use, we're being very careful about making sure that they're high quality, that they have high student impact, um, and that educators are using them widely. I don't know if you have any specific questions about the budget that you were hoping to answer. Well,
▶ 5:18 Speaker 2: I know that this year we went to a bring your own device in the last six to eight months, we've moved towards that. And so I, you don't need to give this level a detail, but at some point it would be good to know how many students are actually just bringing in their own devices. And then how many Chromebooks do we need to continue to purchase and take care of. And what does that look like in terms of a budget number need going into next year's budget?
▶ 5:44 Speaker 6: I can tell you that every student who needs a device has been provided. One, there aren't any students that we have had to turn away. Um, and we are trying to fix devices as quickly as we possibly can. Um, I can get exact numbers from Yeah, thats fine. Next time. Um, there are some concerns when it comes to MCA testing right now mm-hmm. Because I looked into bring your own device with the state side of things. Mm-hmm. Um, I think we would be okay with the high school because many of them are bringing in laptops or iPads or other mm-hmm. Um, more higher quality devices because they are going off to school or, or they need them. Um, what we found and what we encouraged our middle school students to do was buy personal Chromebooks, which is great for everything except MCA testing. Mm-hmm. Um, we can't actually use, bring your own device devices for MCA testing. So I'm working with, um, Mr. S Mulligan and Mr. Mon Ano, um, and Mr. Dole, her, um, to try to figure out a plan that we can put some devices aside just for testing, um, and not put them out into circulation so that we have that covered. Um, and planning for that now, rather than trying to, to do that in the spring,
▶ 6:57 Speaker 2: Because otherwise you'd have to probably get Chromebooks from elementary schools and get them up to
▶ 7:02 Speaker 6: The middle school. We've done that one year. We put them on trucks and, and brought them over. We would really prefer not to have to do that again. Yep. Um, but we are looking at what that might look like to try to prevent 16 days of MCM a s testing at the middle school. That's a huge disruption when we can test everybody in, in the whole school at once and bring it down to about five or six days. Um, so, okay. Great.
▶ 7:24 Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Mm-hmm. Any other questions
▶ 7:27 Speaker 1: or comments regarding the technology update?
▶ 7:34 Speaker 4: So those were my only two items for this evening.