Posted: 5:09 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2014

Middletown Schools to spend $175,000 on technology

By Rick McCrabb

Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — 

    Students throughout the district will soon have the ability to use Chromebooks to assist their academics and assessments.

    The board of education approved spending $165,340 to purchase 14 Chromebooks carts — a total of 420 Chromebooks — from CDW-G. Each of the Chromebooks cost $344.

    The technology will be available to students throughout the district, except for kindergarten, said Robin Surland, director of technology and innovation.

    When questioned about the life-expectancy of the Chromebooks, Surland said the computers probably will last about five years, though it was difficult to estimate because the technology is new.

    The Rev. Greg Tyus, board vice president, asked whether the financially-strapped district had enough funds to purchase the technology and he was assured by treasurer Randy Bertram that was money was already in the budget. Tyus smiled and said he wanted that was on the record.

    During her technology presentation, Surland said there are 16,888 computer science job openings in Ohio at a time when the state is producing less than 1,400 graduates for that field.   She called computer sciences “a great career.”

    The board also approved spending more than $10,000 for a three-year contract with ParentLink. The community smartphone application with ParentLink will cost the district $3,200 per year and a one time set-up cost of $1,000.

    Superintendent Sam Ison called the $10,600 a “pretty small” investment to improve the district’s communication. Eventually, he said, the technology will allow the district to communicate with the community “very quickly” through Facebook and Twitter. Parents will be alerted of news happening in the district and their child’s schools, he said.

    Tyus wanted to know if the technology department was taking steps to educate parents on the new technology. He wants the district to open its elementary schools to parents who need computer training and Internet access.

 

Without knowing how they plan to use the Chrome books and without, as VET says, a pilot project demonstrating that they were effective, seems like it potentially could be a distraction and a waste of money to me. The district is not flush with funds, and even if it were, must concentrate on raising their test scores not experimenting with technology.

The smartphone app makes sense to me as that's how many young parents communicate now.

These are not the first chromebooks the district has purchased.

Thank you Ms. Andrew. Sounds like its well thought out. I hope that it's successful in helping raise the test scores.

As a further aside, it would be beneficial for the district finance manager to address a question as to why the purchase was not a  three year lease. Why the acquisition? This is not complex technology....its just like a dumb terminal accessing a server in a non smart, dumb server, dumb terminal environment.

For clarity, as the cpu is so basic, as the google book is just accessing the internet, the duration of its practicality is really one driven by costs associated with MTOF, of mean time of failure, when its costs to repair exceed just replacing it. As its just a terminal accessing the net, with no cpu processing, all cloud, its functionality could easily be 6-7 years, as it isn't going to become obsolete within 18 months of a cpu advance. What will drive its replacement will be the service cost and warranty.

It would be an interesting discussion why these were not leased, as there would be no benefit for capitalized acquisition on such a basic device, unless the warranty was at least 3 years for purchase.     

Vet: I will try to be as non-combative as I can, but I must correct you on the teacher pay: it has been this way for over 75 years, when my mother was a teacher. The teachers are paid for a set number of days. Their pay is based on these (typically, around 180 +/-). The teacher can be paid during the school year only, or---as most probably select---26 pays DIVIDED INTO THE SALARY BASED ON THE 180 +/- days. Food service employees, and bus drivers have this option also. Do you claim that they (food service and bus drivers) draw a "full salary" for the whole year?   Your bud forever, just 1chmoore.

chmoore1, having had parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, et al as teachers, including private universities, I am aware of the policy you speak. In fact, most male teachers paint during the summer, and make the higher payment during the school year, and the extra summer work compensates for the lack of payment during the approximate three month period they are off for the summer.

However, you made Vet's point. The teacher referenced was paid during the summer and did the work. The difference was instead of picking up another job, he/she had the annual salary amortized over 12 months, not 9. So, your point then it was really volunteer work, when she was paid, but could have sat home, did nothing, which many teachers do for the three month period, you know, work on the tan, sit by the pool, in lieu of painting houses or finding another source of income.

There is nothing breath taking nor exemplifying innovation for using a google chrome book in contrast to a laptop, an ipad, or a Kindle Fire. In fact, most reviews are more favorable these are better alternatives to a device that only hits the web, that does not run applications on its own (native) platform.

Congrats. You got VV to bring down the all CAPS.

Next.

 
      

chmoore1:

"Food service employees, and bus drivers have this option also. Do you claim that they (food service and bus drivers) draw a "full salary" for the whole year?"

I'm not sure about bus drivers. One lives across the street from me. He comes and goes depending on the need for his services to take athletic teams to events as well as band events (usually in the evening hours). I would imagine he drives a route during the school day also, dunno. He did tell me his pay is around $13/hr and I would guess he is paid only while driving and not considered a salary situation in his case. Perhaps a bus driver draws a full salary if they bus the kids to summer events as well as the regular school year.

Food service may draw a full salary if they work the job in a non-school related situation when school in not in session. Perhaps they work exclusively at the schools for the 9 months and then work in the private sector perhaps at a cafeteria or stocking vending machines at a factory the other 3 months. Dunno.   

ch, don't wish to belabor this point on salary positions. I will stay with my argument that a teacher is paid a salary for the whole year and they are ON THE JOB for 9 months out of the year, with most not doing diddly squat the other 3 months....IE, they don't work a full year to earn their salary for a FULL YEAR. A normal job would require a person to work a full 12 months of the year to earn the full amount of their salary. You can offer all the math you wish, but the bottom line here is that they are paid a salary that would represent a full year of work anywhere else but in the world of academics. NO ONE gets three months off of work in the world I've been living in for the past 45+ years. (and still keeps their job) 6 weeks is usually the max at companies nowadays and you have to be there 20+ years to get that.

ch:

"One last observation: in your theory, since a teacher is paid year round, that means that they should be "on-call" all summer (since they are paid "for not working")."

Ahh c'mon ch!!! We both know that a teacher isn't "on call" all summer. On call for what? Hell, I've got two teachers as neighbors and they are home most days in the summer doing what they want to do, drawing that FULL YEAR'S SALARY while NOT GOING TO WORK for three months.

We haven't mentioned this as yet but......

How about those step increases between the regular yearly salary increases they get that pad their paycheck? How about the courses they complete that also increase their pay? How about the pay if they go from a bachelors degree to a masters? Get paid more for that don't they?Step increases don't happen in the private sector. Getting a masters MAY NOT increase the pay either but may make one more able to be selected for a higher position in the private sector. IF we are going to get a raise at all, it will happen once a year and then it may be 1-3% if we are lucky nowadays. And the raise is based on merit for that year, not contract negotiations as to pay in the future. Companies are getting more stingy about rewarding their people as time goes by. They tend to hoard the money and not share it with the people who actually helped them make it.

As a side note, I'll tell you how bad it's getting as to company cheapness nowadays....

In the past, my former employers have given their employees a Christmas basket, some coupons to dine out with the family over the holidays or, perhaps, given a coupon to provide a ham dinner at Christmas to show their appreciation for a job well done. MY EMPLOYER, this year, just sent everyone a card that told all of us that they appreciated the job we did for them this past year. Attached to the card was a paper picture of a Christmas tree bulb with the company logo and a suggestion that we remove the paper bulb and hang it on our tree this year. That is how cheap companies are getting in today's working world. Workers are irrelevant to the higher ups in the working environment of today and they make it quite obvious to all that we don't matter. Glad I will retire in 3-4 more years. I feel sorry for the young workers who are now forced to work for companies who choose to offer an unappreciative environment. Didn't use to be that way long ago.


We shall agree to disagree on how we both look at the same situation.

chmoore1,
Gotta agree with Acclaro and Vet on this one. There is no one in the private sector that gets, every year, 10 weeks of vacation. There is no one in the private sector that gets a step increase every year. There is no one in the private sector that gets a raise just because they complete a degree. Raises are all based on performance and the profitability of the company. In the old days when people in education didn't earn what people in the private sector did this, and the generous pension and medical benefits, made some sense. It was compensation for being under paid during their career. Now that they make as much, if not more, than those in the private sector the old pay model doesn't make sense to me any more. Hopefully raises will eventually be tied to teacher and administrator performance as measured by student achievement.

Year round may help but I think it's the system that's not necessarily geared toward student achievement. We have some great teachers, but also have some that are not willing or able to change and aren't effective. If you really want to improve the system, give each student a voucher for the average cost of education in Ohio, my guess around $15,000, that they can use to go to any school they want. You'd see a lot of private schools open that would be geared toward student achievement and the public schools would need to compete to maintain their students. Provided every school would be measured the same and held to the same standard and each school's performance was published, this would jump start a rebirth of education in Ohio. This model helped New Orleans, Detroit, Milwaukee and many other areas quickly improve their education systems.