Board of Education discusses integrated classroom technology, plans for 2004 enrollment

by Amanda Glowish
Grand Island Dispatch, December 26, 2003

Kaegebein's Technology Integration Facilitators (TIF) was topic of discussion at last Monday's Board of Education Meeting.

A core group of teachers have been trained to become part of the TIF program and infuse technology into classrooms. Hope Hartman and Cynthia Booker, teachers at Kaegebein, are involved in the program and have become leaders of instructional technology. This program not only benefits the students but teachers as well.

"I love the challenge of being a technology facilitator because it gives me the chance to play with things I am using and sharing them with our grade level teachers," Hartman said.

TIF experiments with technology and software that is available to students and integrates it with their everyday curriculum. Hartman's third grade class participated in a project, "Seasonal Changes Around the World", in which they studied what life is like for students in other countries and states. Some of the places they learned about include, Georgia, Arizona, Texas, England and Ireland.

"While children may not be able to meet children from other countries face to face, every child can learn about them and communicate with them through multimedia technology," Hartman said.

The class submitted online publications including photos and a weekly observation journal notating weather, land and water, animals, and people. Not only did this project cover social studies curriculum, it also integrated science and language arts.

Instructional technology also enables students to receive more in-depth information about what they are studying. "Even for myself (I found it more in-depth). I can teach from the books that are out there and there are good books out there, but there was so much more that I learned searching (on the internet)," Booker said.

Decline in Future Enrollment

Also discussed was projected enrollment for the 2004-05 school year. Overall statistics show there is a flat rate with the district averaging 3200 students a year. There are signs of a declining trend due to housing and birth rate which will cause the district to fall below their average.

Although the building of townhouses has increased, the schools are not receiving any new students from them, resulting in a smaller kindergarten enrollment. Another contributing factor is the declinging birth rate. The rate has decreased from 314 births in 1985, to 178 currently.

Special Recognition

Lastly, Grand Island High School's Wind Ensemble was recognized for their recent performance at New York State School Music Association's 68th annual Winter Conference in Rochester's Riverside Convention Center.

Regular Agenda Items

In other news the board also:

• Approved the 2004-05 Budget Calendar which includes various meetings set up to discuss budget plans. The school budget will be voted on at a special meeting on March 29, 2004.
• Approval of budget transfers over $2000. Certain changes after the budget was put together resulted in staff transferring buildings which has lead to payroll transfers.
• Approved Fire Safety Inspection audit for $450

Next Meeting

The next Board of Education meeting is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 22 at 7 p.m. in the High School senior cafeteria.