Plugged In

Sending a Message Districts find better ways to get the word out.

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When police arrested suspects in Randolph County, North Carolina, last January on charges that included talk of blowing up a school, Bob McRae, superintendent of Randolph County School District, knew that his 18,000 students and their parents would worry.

 

McRae's administrative staff may have had to hit the phones and try to call each parent individually—a Herculean effort unlikely to succeed. But after recently installing Connect-ED, an emergency communications system from Los Angeles-based Notification Technologies, he was able to let parents know with just one phone call that everything was fine.

Unfortunately, situations like these remain at the top of every school administrator's priority list. At the same time, more mundane tasks like announcing parent-teacher meetings and school closings are also a big time sink that can be solved with automation. Outbound communications systems use any and every way you can to get the word out. Telephones, the web, e-mail, and even faxed or printed letters deliver messages that originate from only a voice-recorded message. Many systems receive inbound communications as well.

The technology can sometimes yield unexpected results. Alan Brandenburg, the assistant principal for curriculum and guidance at Laguna Hills High School in Laguna Hills, California, uses the National Notification Network (3n) to issue messages to selected groups of people, such as Spanish-language speakers, who in the past complained that they never received information. Brandenburg was especially pleased with how the network enabled the district to improve attendance for the 10th-grade exit exams in February. "A new AYP ruling required that 95 percent of our 10th graders take the exam," he says. "In the 2003-'04 school year, we missed by two kids, but this year, thanks to the calls, we had 98 percent attendance."

As these systems can carry a hefty price tag, many vendors offer discount programs. At the end of last year, Honeywell assisted four school districts in applying for funding through the Department of Education's Emergency Response and Crisis Management program. The recipients—Craven County (NC) Schools, Danbury (CT) Board of Education, Elizabeth (NJ) Board of Education, and Mid Valley (PA) School District—received a total of $1 million toward buying the company's Instant Alert system.

The National Notification Network sponsors a program that lets businesses in a district's community pay for its system. And Notification Technologies, which makes the Connect-ED used by Randolph County, informally works with schools to navigate the federal funding labyrinth.

Three Big Deals

Cobb County (GA) School District joined the one-to-one computing movement by leasing wireless laptops worth $69.9 million from Apple Computer for its teachers and students. The 63,000 iBook G4 laptops will be leased for four years and distributed to middle and high school students and teachers.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the country's fourth largest district, partnered with Learning.com in March. Students in the fourth through eighth grades are using EasyTech to acquire technology skills and apply them across the curriculum. The program has been adopted in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. It is also being used in numerous districts in states that don't hold adoptions for technology applications, including California and Michigan.

A five-year grant from Microsoft will contribute up to $2 million to help the Pennsylvania Department of Education improve high schools and encourage teachers to use technology in the classrooms. Some of the funding will assist Keystones, the state's ed-tech program, which identifies teachers who successfully integrate technology in their lessons. The grant will also make curriculum ideas available from the School of the Future, a tech-based public high school that Microsoft is designing for the Philadelphia school district.

E-Rate Expectations
What do districts do if funding dollars don't come through?

In 2004, schools applied for E-Rate funding totaling $4.3 billion. At press time, only $1.8 billion had been approved. Every year, districts count on E-Rate money that doesn't materialize for a variety of reasons—missed deadlines, improperly filled-out forms, or failing to have signed contracts in place. Scholastic Administr@tor asked a few experts how to make sure your district gets paid.

"The first thing administrators need to do, if they haven't [already], is learn about technology. Understand what you want to accomplish and how you're going to get there. Find schools that are doing what you want to do and try to go one step further. I believe if you know what you want to accomplish, the plan will create the money."
—Joe Kitchens, superintendent Western Heights (OK) Public Schools

 

E-Rate Program Snapshot

"Determine your educational goals, develop a curriculum plan, and then determine what products you'll need to reach the outcome. After that, you can look into revenue sources. A substantial amount of funding goes unused every year. There's great flexibility in using federal funds for multiple purposes. If you start with that as your goal, you'll be able to use a lot of the available funding in a variety of ways."
—Bruce Montgomery, executive director
Freedom to Learn, a state-enacted program that awards federal technology grants to Michigan's school districts

"Put resources into a public relations campaign so you can build stronger ties with your business community and develop local funding sources beyond just E-Rate. Over the years, the districts that have been most successful are the ones that have gotten financial support from their local community as part of a capital campaign."
—Sara Fitzgerald, vice president, communications
Funds for Learning, an ed-tech consulting firm

"We got together with other schools in our county and hired a consultant who keeps on track of federal funding guidelines and forms. The consultant previews forms, red flags any errors, audits them, and generally makes sure we meet our deadlines. "Also, step up your grant-writing process. Try to find someone-if possible, a staff member who's a creative thinker-and give that person the time and authority to put together a group to work on projects and fill out applications. Give the team a couple of years to learn the process, and stick with it. After a few tries, you'll have some success."
—Tom Johnson, technology director
Kaleva Norman Dickson (MI) School District

Not So Easy Being Green

After five years, the computers at the Central NewYork Charter School in Syracuse, New York, were worn out. Technology coordinator Don Bennett knew he couldn't toss them away, because trashing hazardous waste is on its way to becoming illegal in most states. California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota have already outlawed disposing computer waste in landfills, and 23 more states introduced similar legislation in 2003.

Bennett called a local recycling company, but the fees discouraged him. "I recall it was around $20 per monitor and $20 per base, $3 per keyboard, $3 per mouse," says Bennett. He also considered asking the manufacturers to take back the equipment, as most tech companies—Compaq, Dell, and HP, for instance—offer trade-in programs, but that would have been time consuming.

In the end, Bennett went with a computer-refurbishing company called CDI based in Ontario. "We sent them our old machines, and they sold us reconditioned equipment," he says. "We did all this at half the cost of buying new." CDI covered shipping costs on the old machines, and the school paid to ship the refurbished products.

If you decide to recycle, make sure the facility is legitimate, cautions Peter Cook, professor of computer and information science at Temple University in Philadelphia. Does it ship off-site to somewhere unknown, or is it an actual waste-handling facility? Another option is to donate. Cook suggests looking for churches or other nonprofits that may have great use for your old machines.

Check out these sites for more ways to junk your old tech:

 

• The Environmental Protection Agency includes a number of links and resources on the proper disposal of electronic equipment.

 

• The Computer TakeBack Campaign aims to protect the health and well being of electronics users, workers, and the communities where electronics are produced and discarded.

 

• The IBM PC Recycling Service will recycle any manufacturer's PCs including system units, monitors, printers and optional attachments for $29.99 including shipping. Many manufacturers offer similar services.

 

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