Board member questions whether parents should have to pay
By Karen Cresta, Staff Writer, The Times
Although the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District is moving toward standardizing on Chromebooks — like the unit pictured above — for students in sixth through 12th grades, who pays for them, and how they will be used remains a question.
EAST MARLBOROUGH – On Monday night, the Unionville Chadds Ford School District continued the on-going debate on whether to supply each student – to take home and therefore charge a fee, or use within the classrooms only – Chromebook devices.
The Curriculum Council held a meeting prior to the work session dedicated to this topic and discussed the pros and cons with teachers and administrators. The two and a half year Chromebook pilot results were presented in detail and reported back to the board.
Board member Carolyn Daniels informed the board that the recommendation from the Curriculum Council is to provide every student in middle and high school with a Chromebook and every course would use an online Learning Management System (LMS) for organizational purposes, as well as using the Canvas technology to enhance participation and learning.
“This is just the beginning. There are many conversations to come,” said Daniels.
Superintendent of schools John Sanville added, “We’re not going to rush through this. We need to find out how we’re going to finance it. That’s not something we’re going to make a decision on without taking some time and discussion and thought.”
“We need to make a commitment to the process,” Vic Dupuis added. He mentioned that technology will continuously change and the district needs to make it work.
“We have the capacity to make it work and to make it work well,” Sanville stated.
Board member Gregg Lindner voiced his concerns about a proposal to charge families a $75 fee in order to keep district costs down and that could mean a substantial fee to those families who are impacted with three children in sixth to 12th grades that would have to pay each year times each child.
“The issue is not the program but the costs,” said Dupuis. He recommended that March be the month to talk about finances and the possibility of a technology or insurance fee for each Chromebook.
The board heard from Unionville High School students, Alice Liu and Matt Daniels, regarding the delayed start time study with the Chester County Student Forum – a county-wide initiative to propose the benefits of pushing back the middle school and high school start time of 7:30 a.m. The benefits of doing so involve increased academic performance and attentiveness in class with more sleep time and less tardiness. Some of the obstacles with making the proposed plan feasible are extracurricular activities, child care issues, busing issues, the effect on faculty, and the opinions of the community.
The next step is the formulation phase to consider various for the delayed start and possibly reducing small amounts of time during the day to absorb the delay. A proposed plan is possible by spring that will then be delivered to the Chester County Board of Education.
The status of decile rankings as part of the college application process was reviewed by Daniels. The recommendation to not include the rankings was seen favorably at a parent meeting and a parent letter went out explaining the process. The board will vote to incorporate this new policy at the next meeting or in March.
Next month for board consideration is purchasing new software to use as a budget tool and as a comparison tool of other schools and national testing results. The initial cost for the robust product is $13,000 and then $10,000 for each subsequent year. Board member Robert Sage cautioned the board to demo the product prior to purchase.
“We do compare ourselves quite often and we see it a lot in financial and test scores,” Sanville said.
In the nature of transparency, the board will be reviewing the 12 survey comments regarding the 2016-2017 school calendar. Last month these comments were overlooked so the board wants to revisit them to ensure that all issues were addressed.
One of the board goals this year is to administer school climate surveys for students, staff and parents that would generate results-driven reports. The cost of this initiative is approximately $8,000. It will be voted on at the next meeting.
The next meeting will be held on Monday, February 22, at 7:30 p.m. All board documents can be viewed on www.ucfsd.org.
