Kenton County Public Schools
HOMEPAGE

With the Kentucky legislative action of 1992 awarding schools district Ed-Tech funds to be matched dollar for dollar by the local school district, Kenton County Schools began a technology implementation to support the curriculum. 12 months were spent in organizing a district technology committee and planning for the future implementation. It was decided that as funds were disseminated from the state on an annual basis, we would purchase a few computers and printers and combine the remaining 1^st year funds with the 2^nd year funds and cable all of the buildings. In combination with construction going on in the district, we felt that creating the infrastructure was the key to a long-range success. All future funds would be assigned to the schools based on their enrollment and inclusion of technology in the building consolidated plan.

After completing the cabling to each classroom, library and administrative area, Kenton County Schools began adding school buildings to the WAN (wide area network). Professional development began by focusing on writing and using a word processor as a tool for that activity. Teachers were also trained in the instructional uses of E-mail. As teachers acquired these skills PD began to focus on instructional aspects of the Internet. As each year passed a new concept, either tool or supplemental content software, was introduced into the professional development plan.

As more equipment was installed in each school the district hired several full time technicians. While that took care of hardware failure, it did not address the day to day operator issues that occurred. The district staff implemented Technology Teams in each building to build capacity in each school. We complemented that with students who became part of the Student Technology Leadership Program. We found it necessary to have a team of teachers, staff and students that were on site and could support minor failures and one-on-one training needs. In organizing this support structure, we held annual summer training sessions for each group, correlating the training's to cover the same material.

With the addition of the TLCF (Technology Literacy Challenge Fund) offers, Kenton County Schools was able to purchase items other than computers and printers that added to the curriculum. The first year digital cameras and scanners were purchased. The professional development was focused on using that equipment to create web pages. It exceeded our expectations. The second offer of TLCF was used to train 1/6 of the teaching staff on the instructional use of a presentation tool (Hyperstudio). Each participant had to complete 3 projects including a student project from their classroom. A web page was created with links to the projects for teacher sharing. The Year 3 offer will be used to purchase projection devices for students to present multimedia presentations incorporating the items from Years 1 and 2.

While each year we continue to add more up-to-date workstations and printer to each school based on their enrollment, we have found that the TLCF offers have made a huge impact. As this is a district with low free and reduced lunch students (rated at 52%), we qualified only for communication reimbursement from the E-rate. This has reduced the annual cost of leased lines for Internet access to our schools.

With this school year we added a teacher as a district trainer to the technology staff. This person conducts a weekly 3-hour technology PD based on the various tools and curriculum software available to teachers. She is also made available to schools, as requested, to work one-on-one with teachers during their planning or school created time. We currently focus on the Teacher Standards adopted by the Kentucky Professional Standards Board and make sure each person is informed which standard each training addresses.

We are looking for measurable progress in the area of technology with our students. We participated in a survey from the Milken Family Foundation focusing on teachers, principals and the district's perception of technology and it's integration. We also survey schools annually for needs, implementation and perceptions.