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Schools

Douglas School Board Scraps Retreat

Rather than meeting on Oct. 1 for a retreat, the Douglas County Board of Education will gather before its regularly scheduled meetings to discuss topics of importance.

Due to two of the five board members having schedule conflicts with a planned Saturday retreat on Oct. 1, the Douglas County Board of Education will meet four times for an hour before its regular bimonthly meetings starting Oct. 3.

The board passed the change 5-0 at Monday night’s 2.5 hour meeting. The agendas for the meetings, set for 5 to 6 p.m. in the , are:

  • Oct. 3, board redistricting and superintendent goals.
  • Oct. 17, Balanced Scorecard and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).
  • Nov. 7, instructional best practices.
  • Nov. 14, contingent upon the Educational Special Purpose Local Option Sales (ESPLOST) passing, construction management, vendor selection process and televising board meetings.

The board also heard a first-year report compiled by its 122-member Technology Committee about the use of technology in the school system. The committee, which included students, parents, teachers, community members, administrators and officials representing higher education and the Georgia Department of Education, met monthly with an average of 60 people attending the meetings and subcommittee meetings.

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The report, presented by several committee members including Information Technology Director Todd Hindmon, revealed multiple challenges. Some of these were:

  • Equity in resources and software availability across the district.
  • Wireless connection in all schools.
  • DCSS not currently having a set of identified skills for students regarding technology.
  • Teachers only being exposed to 21st Century Learning from a surface level; many consider it a “buzz word” in education for the moment. They do not necessarily relate it to technology, life skills, learning-focused, content-area teaching, collaboration, global connections, etc.
  • Teachers are using technology in the classroom, but there needs to be more student interaction with the technologies available.
  • DCSS doesn't currently have a requirement that instructional technology be included in teacher units, student learning, or assessment practices.
  • Surveys need to be conducted to define technology access in homes, professional development needs, current teacher and student skill levels.

However, the report offered several recommendations to the challenges. Some of these were:

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  • Standard 21st Century classrooms in every school and every classroom.
  • Develop “best practice” videos for teacher resource.
  • Identify “trail blazers” at each school that can demonstrate best practices.
  • Provide in-depth professional development to all teachers, staff and administrators that will empower them to transform their teaching to better meet the needs of students and addressing the current standards for 21st Century Learning.
  • Technology resources/component should be added to all units taught–this may be in the form of an assessment, skill acquisition, culminating activity, etc. This could be monitored through lesson plans, observations, and/or Learning Focused Schools units that will be developed.
  • Implement more mobile technologies. Move away from traditional desktops to rechargeable laptops and netbooks to decrease electrical and cabling requirements.
  • Assess students in regard to technology proficiency at key, identified times during their school career (i.e. end of second-, fifth-, eighth-grade and high school milestones.)

After the roughly 30-minute presentation, Hindmon thanked everyone involved in the ambitious project, which is seeking board member representation for the 2011-12 committee.

Board member D.T. Jackson of District 2 asked Hindmon how soon all of the district’s 33 schools would feature 21st Century classrooms. Hindmon said it would still take about three to five years, depending on the passage of the $122 million ESPLOST on Nov. 8.

“We haven’t specified which schools go first; we’re looking at the district as a whole, not as schools,” Hindmon said.

Jackson also asked Hindmon if he could estimate the cost of the district’s five-year technology implementation, but Hindmon said he couldn’t since technology “prices change day to day.”

Michael Miller, of District 1, followed by asking if the school system from this point forward could have “equity on technology” and establish benchmarks for it.

Janet Kelley, of District 3, later during closing board member comments, called the Technology Committee, “a good thing for our system.”

Other items discussed or determined at the meeting included:

  • Hearing an update from Morgan Keegan First Vice President Bill Camp about refinancing district bonds in an effort to pay a lower interest rate.
  • Determining how board members would use their final nine hours of state required board training. At the Dec. 5 meeting, Georgia School Boards Association (GSBA) consultant Tony Arasi will conduct a three-hour training program starting at 2 p.m. for the whole board on Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), which will visit the district in March as part of its scheduled five-year reaccreditation process. For the final six hours of individual training, Dr. Sam Haskell of District 4; Kelley; Chair Jeff Morris, of District 5, and Jackson will take GSBA school law training Dec. 1 at organization’s conference, while Miller will take student achievement training at the same event.
  • The board also unanimously passed its consent agenda, which had 12 items.
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