Technology Counts - March 14, 2013 - 11

some unexpected issues. Many
students in the district have relatives in Mexico and travel there
on weekends or for vacations,
and some students racked up
large roaming charges when they
made those trips. Verizon worked
with the district to eliminate the
roaming charges and put the devices on another plan that would
cover such use.
The pilot was a success,
McPhail says, but it ended during the 2011-12 school year.
After that, the district had to
drop support for the outside-ofschool access.
“We had informed families
it was only for one year, but
most people were pretty upset,”
McPhail says. “It drove a subset
of parents to buy broadband, but
others couldn’t afford it.”
The fcc has created a program, called Connect2Compete,
that partners with private Internet companies to provide highspeed Internet access for $9.95
per month, along with a laptop
or desktop computer for $150,
to students who qualify for free
lunch.
But Steve R. Clemons, the assistant superintendent and chief
technology officer for the San
Diego County Office of Education, which works with 42 California school districts and coordinated the logo pilot project
nationwide for the fcc , says that

ity initiative not only provides the
broadband, says Freddoso, it also
provides an in-house staff of eight
network engineers that schools can
call on for advice.
In addition, the state provides
E-rate consultants to help schools
maximize dollars from the federal
program. Since North Carolina
began providing such assistance,
districts are drawing down four
times more E-rate money than before, Freddoso says.
Districts across the country
should try to maximize E-rate reimbursements and tap into any
state technical support available,
Freddoso says.
End users, like Kara Heichelbech,
a 7th grade digital-communications
teacher at North Carolina’s ClarkPleasant Middle School, often don’t
know the backstory when it comes
to broadband. They just want highquality, reliable service.
Heichelbech says that last school
year, before the district’s broadband upgrade, she spent three
days without Internet access in her
class, which relies heavily on the
use of online tools. At other times,
her Internet connection was slow
or would cut off in the middle of a
lesson, particularly during state
testing time.
This school year, with a better
connection, she’s doing more with
video online and has assigned
more-rigorous projects.
When Internet access goes down,
“the kids are frustrated and just
want to shut down,” Heichelbech
says. “I haven’t experienced that
at all this year.” n

while Connect2Compete can help
many students, it can face problems in rural areas, which may
not have a service provider willing to participate.
In addition, “it’s still incumbent
on families to spend $10 a month,
and for some families that is actually a lot of money,” Clemons
says. “As more students use online and blended learning, this is
becoming a big equity issue.”

‘BUSTING AT THE SEAMS’
But some districts worry that
if the fcc opens the E-rate pro-

gram to cover off-campus Internet access, the already limited pot of money for in-school
technology will shrink, says
John D. Harrington, the chief
executive officer of Funds
for Learning, an Edmond, Okla.based consulting firm that helps
schools apply for E-rate funding.
In the 2012 fiscal year, $2.3
billion in funding was available
through the E-rate, but schools
and libraries had asked for $5.2
billion, Harrington says. “The Erate program is already busting
at the seams to cover the access
in schools,” he says.
Yet the issue of access outside

Tammy Stern, Ed.D.
dIrEcTOr OF currIcuLum,
cONNELLSvILLE arEa SchOOL
dISTrIcT, cONNELLSvILLE, Pa

of school is a personal one for
students like Joe Gutierrez, a
7th grader at Clark-Pleasant
Middle School in Greenwood,
Ind.
When he moved to the area
recently, he didn’t have Internet
access at home and got behind
in his homework because some
of it required online computer
use. “It was kind of hard for a
while,” he says.
He ultimately figured out
how to use the local library’s
computers and got caught up.
Though he has Internet access
at home now, both he and his
older sister sometimes opt for

As the new principal at Connellsville Area Senior High, I felt an
enormous sense of urgency to
usher in real improvements.
Anyone who analyzed the performance data saw that sweeping
changes needed to be made.
N ISL was inst r umental in
helping me make these changes.
I was able to step up to the
daunting task ahead of me.
There’s a unique practicality to the NISL training. I
approached many aspects of my
job differently—the way I worked
with my staff, designed the
curriculum, matched teachers to
students, and used data to identify areas for improvement.
By the end of that first year,
everyone was encouraged by the
rapid progress. By the end of my
second year, the school met

the library’s connection because
it’s faster. But that can mean a
lot of driving for his mother, he
says.
Clagg, the Aurora district’s
information chief, says the
home-access issue is so important that the fcc should examine the overall program and
what it’s funding in order to
incorporate reimbursement for
off-campus student access.
“Would I give up using federal
dollars to pay for cellphones [for
administrators] to get devices
for students to take off site? You
bet,” he says. “I’d be willing to
prioritize.” n

Adequate Yearly Progress for the
first time ever.
Since then, I’ve become the
Director of Curriculum, and I
truly believe that this training
helped me to devise a far stronger
program for the thousands of
kids in my district, and to achieve
overall success as an educator.
NISL congratulates Dr. Stern
on her success while principal
of Connellsville Area Senior
High School and in winning an
Educator of the Year Award in
her current role as Director of
Curriculum at the district office.
Read the Connellsville case study
and learn how your district can
improve schools by strengthening
school leadership.

www.nisl.net/results/stern

P: 202.449.5060 E: INFO@NISL.NET

TECHNOLOGY COUNTS 2013

>> www.edweek.org/go/tc13

http://www.nisl.net/results/stern http://www.nisl.net/results/stern http://www.edweek.org/go/tc13

Technology Counts - March 14, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Technology Counts - March 14, 2013