Jackson County Schools expanding its one-to-one technology initiative to provide every student with a personal device to enhance classroom engagement and bridge the digital divide for rural families.
Director of Schools Jason Hardy said the district secured grants to purchase approximately 1,600 new Chromebooks for students and 200 laptops for teachers. Hardy said the initiative also includes the installation of smart TVs and projectors in roughly half of the district’s classrooms to create more interactive learning environments.
“We’ve been lucky enough actually over the past few years that we’ve been a 1-to-1 school primarily,” Hardy said. “The challenge with that has always been keeping up with technology, so we’ve been very fortunate to receive different types of grants.”
Hardy said while all students have access to devices during school hours, students in sixth grade and above are permitted to take the Chromebooks home. Hardy said the district aims to phase in updated smart technology for the remaining classrooms over the next few years.
“We know we’re in a rural county, you know we know that we have several students that do not have access to any type of laptop or computer they can use at home, whether they’re at their parents’ or their their grandparents’ or even their friends’ house,” Hardy said. “So this gives the ability to take home these devices and to work with their parents and guardians and keep the family involved in in their learning and just things that they were unable to do for the you know the past several years, now they’re able to do and we just think that’ll be an impact on on our kids’ education going forward.”
Hardy said the district addresses the lack of reliable home internet in some areas by allowing students to download videos and notes for offline use. Hardy said the district office also provides temporary internet access through community partnerships when possible.
“Yeah, that’s always going to be a problem,” Hardy said. “We have several areas in Jackson County that we know that we have families who don’t have internet. We do have programs here through the district office that we can give temporary access and Twin Lakes in the past and and other community members have kind of stepped up and helped us try to provide that, at least on a short-term basis for our students.”
Hardy said the school system utilizes filters and monitoring software to ensure students use the devices safely and appropriately. Hardy said the technology department receives alerts for specific keywords or websites, allowing administrators to educate students on proper usage.
“We have technology agreements with the families and the students to make sure that they’re not doing… and we also have a program on each one that actually tells the administration in each school if if certain things are being attempted with these devices where we can kind of head that off at the pass and certain keywords or phrases or websites come up, it alerts the administrations so we can kind of, you know, not really discipline our kids but to educate them that these are not the type of websites that we’re providing these devices for,” Hardy said. “So we have a lot of safeguards in place and I think in this day and this world of technology, that has to be one of your main goals.”
Hardy said the district will measure the success of the investment through academic benchmarks, state accountability testing, and feedback from student and teacher surveys.
“And if if we’re seeing that our students are growing and getting better whether that’s through surveys or as from our students’ testimonies or teachers telling us that students are more engaged with the material or whether we’re seeing that on academic tests in a years’ time we’re hoping to see results and and I think we will,” Hardy said.
