Education Week - February 6, 2013 - Special Report - S25

DIGITAL ACCESS

Dennis Stockdale
SUPERINTENDENT
Garrett-Keyser-Butler-Community School District, Garrett, Ind.
BY MICHELLE R. DAVIS

Swikar Patel for Education Week

ennis Stockdale arrived as the superintendent in Garrett, Ind., six years ago, when
the Garrett-Keyser-Butler school district seemed
as remotely connected to 21st-century learning as
its rural landscape might suggest.
Today, amid the farms and small-town stores,
all three schools in this 1,800-student district
have been equipped with Wi-Fi, elementary
school students use their own iPads in class, older
students take their MacBook laptops home every
day, and a state-of-the art, totally wired high
school opened this school year.
Stockdale says he also made sure that all
students in his system, 21 miles north of Fort
Wayne, 73 percent of whom qualify for subsidized
lunches, have equitable access to the Internet
beyond school hours.
“The whole key is individualizing instruction
and education for the student,” Stockdale says.
“We’ve got to reinvent school and make it a place
where the kids want to come.”
That change didn’t come overnight—the
school had few computers and outdated Internet
connections when Stockdale arrived—and it took
some convincing, particularly when it came to
the school board, says Anthony L. Griffin, the
board’s vice president. And though Stockdale was
passionate, not everyone on the board was ready
for the high-tech ideas he proposed. “Even myself,
I had some questions,” Griffin says.
But Stockdale pushed board members to attend
conferences highlighting the possibilities of a
1-to-1 device system. He urged them to travel to
other districts to see initiatives already in place,
made his own presentations using technology,
and ultimately made sure members had their
own iPads for board business.
“Some of the board members that were not
much for it, when they saw what it could do and
where it could go, that helped sway them,” Griffin
says.
And Stockdale, 48, found the money to get the
job done. To begin with, he redirected money
that parents already were paying in state fees
for printed textbooks into buying devices and
using electronic curricula.
“We’re not dependent on textbooks at all,” he
says. “We’re spending money differently than we
ever spent it before.”

Teachers’ Roles
Stockdale emphasized professional development as the devices were rolled out. Now,

teachers are curating curricula and creating
their own electronic-resource libraries to promote individualized learning. Rather than
group by grade level for early-grades mathematics, students are grouped by learning
level and outcomes, which can change daily or
weekly, Stockdale says.
“Technology is not a replacement for teachers,” he says. “It’s a tool and a resource for efficiency in educational delivery. Teachers can
do more because they have that tool.”
In addition to using textbook fees, the district received a $300,000 classroom-innovation
grant from the Indiana Department of Education to help offset costs. “Our kids deserve
these resources as much as any area, and it’s
our responsibility to provide those,” Stockdale
says.
Once the 1-to-1 program was in place, however, there were worries that students who had
Internet access at home would have an unfair
advantage over those who didn’t. The district
used some of the grant money to buy 100 mobile Wi-Fi hot spots that students can take
home to provide access.
In addition, the district wired the community
center in Garrett with Wi-Fi, so students have
access there. The local library is also wired,
and in the new high school, part of which
opened this school year, administrators will
denote a wireless area that will be open until
10 p.m. on school days for students to work.
But getting to this point wasn’t all smooth
sailing. The district experienced what Stockdale
calls an “implementation dip.” For a year, test
scores fell while educators worked out the kinks
of the 1-to-1 program and continued training.
Stockdale says he faced some criticism, but the
teachers, the community, and most board members stood behind him.
Now, scores have rebounded. For example,
the middle school’s state rating went from
a D during the implementation dip to an A
last year, according to the state education
department.
Amber L. Hartsough, the president of the J.E.
Ober Elementary School pta, says the positive
effects of Stockdale’s efforts are evident.
Students created a video to highlight why they
needed a new playground, for example, which
they posted on the school website.
“My 1st grader knows more about technology
than I do,” she says. “In today’s world, they’re
going to need that.” n

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Education Week - February 6, 2013 - Special Report

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