The New Age of Education

It’s a new day for Springfield Public Schools, and Superintendent John Jungmann is turning the clock ahead with changes centered on meeting the modern needs of the district.

Under Jungmann’s direction, this fall educators and students at 18 Springfield schools are receiving equipment upgrades via a new strategic approach to providing the latest in educational equipment. It’s the first year of a three-year technology deployment that will transform teaching and learning models.

He’s drawing on experience. Efforts to put more 21st century tools in the hands of students and teachers in Liberty – where Jungmann was an administrator for two years – are now being fully realized in the Kansas City suburb as SPS’ IGNITE program gains a foothold in the Queen City. The acronym is inspire, grow, network, integrate, transform and engage.

“The path that we have to go on is just to become a more agile, flexible system that shifts with the world as it shifts at a more rapid pace,” Jungmann said. “That’s the one thing that’s guaranteed at this point. It’s not going to slow down.”

30,000 devices
SPS Associate Superintendent Ben Hackenwerth manages IGNITE, which is designed to provide the resources and support necessary for all teachers and students to access a personalized learning environment. A key focus is upgrading system technology.

Through the initiative, teachers and students will receive nearly 30,000 devices to be shared in the 25,000-student district, Hackenwerth said. However, the goal is not to provide a device for every young mind.

Kindergarten through second grade classrooms, for example, will use five iPad Mini 2 tablets in station rotation and eight total devices per room. Also, each building will receive a cart of 30 Hewlett Packard Chromebooks to be shared between classrooms. For third through eighth graders, Chromebooks will be given to all students, who can take them home after “digital-citizenship” training. High school devices have yet to be determined.

All SPS teachers this year will receive hybrids – two-in-one laptop and tablet devices.

The effort is part of a larger strategy to make technology upgrades part of the regular operating budget. All devices will be leased directly from manufacturers with the first-year budget for upgrades running $750,000. Early cost estimates run over $1.3 million for the next three years, but the high school devices are not yet factored. Bank of America Public Capital Corp. was selected for the initial lease financing.

The expenses are not yet fully determined, but leasing costs should hold under 1 percent of the SPS annual operating budget, Jungmann said. In August, the school board approved a $118 million budget.

Hackenwerth said the new Sherwood Elementary School already is fully deployed, but the full first-year rollout would be spread over several months, so teachers can be trained and information technology staff can handle the load. Jungmann said the district owns around 14,000 computers, so officials aren’t anticipating big spikes in service as new equipment comes on line and outdated devices are repurposed or shelved.

Eventually, students in grades three through 12 will take their devices home to work on school projects after training, Hackenwerth said. Insurance through the district will be available in a waiver program called One2One Risk Solutions – which was developed by Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services Inc. in St. Louis. The cost per month is set at $25 per student or $10 for students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. There is also a cost for each repair or replacement claim for the same amounts. Total costs will be capped for those who pass on the damage waiver: $50 per repair and $150 per full replacement.

“They can break and be lost just like a textbook,” Hackenwerth said. “Textbooks can be costly, and we look at this the same way.”

Learning from Liberty
Officials have taken a similar approach in Liberty.

Liberty Public Schools’ Technology Director Trey Katzer said the district is in its third year of a three-year program designed to put tablets in the hands of roughly 12,000 students. Jungmann served as superintendent the first year of the initiative.

“This last year, we rolled out Chromebooks to students in grades three through seven and MacBooks in grade eight. In the previous year, we had rolled out MacBooks to the high schools,” he said. “This year, we have rolled out iPads to grades K through second. This is our first year of being a fully deployed K-12 district.”

Katzer said the district set up its own internal damage-waiver system with parents having the option to pay a $40 annual insurance fee with a $50 incident deductible. Fees are cut in half for households qualifying for free and reduced lunches. But with no insurance, replacing a Chromebook can cost $200, $379 for an iPad mini or around $850 for a MacBook.

“We do have a handful of parents who say, ‘You know what, just keep that at school,’” Katzer said, noting the district covers repairs for devices damaged on school property.

One complaint in the rollout comes from students. They say teachers ask them to do more work because, for instance, they know the students have the tools for research.

“It’s about preparing them for their future, not our past,” Katzer said.

Leasing costs are around $2.5 million per year for the smaller school district, he said.

Jungmann said the programs aren’t identical, but they serve the same needs.

“I found that the exact same thing that existed in Liberty existed here. There was a desire to increase technology access from our teachers, parent and our students, because they know the digital nature of our world,” he said.

In Nixa, the school district is taking a different approach to its technology upgrades.

In a four-year ConnectEd program launched this year, teachers are being trained first on how to teach with tablet technology before deciding on their digital priorities in the spring, said David Liss, Nixa Public Schools’ executive director of technology and strategic planning. Next year, students and teachers would begin to use new devices before fully adapting and mastering their work flows in years three and four.

The district plans to buy the first computers and tablets, but Liss said leases could be considered down the road. He said upgrades would happen with or without a voter-approved bond issue in the spring, but bond funds would help achieve district technology goals faster.

“Education just needs to be done differently for kids to compete in a global society,” he said.