Leadership has grown for technology as the previous plan provided the implementation of an Instructional Technology Coordinator and a Director of Technology, along with identified lead technology teachers at each building. Although, this network of leadership is quite early in its development, the lead technology teachers and IT Coordinator have begun to build technology integration.

The purchase of software and hardware has supported grade levels and planned courses to provide opportunities and equity, yet the need for software is still apparent. The diverse educational resources and opportunities available to collaborative work have affected teachers, this must continue.

The community has been impacted by the evening opportunities, via parent universities and computer labs open beyond the school day. This provides community access to educational resources on the Internet and other areas of technology.

The additional technology leadership, along with commencement of a Help Desk and Lead Technology Teachers has spurred more growth than otherwise possible. The obtainment of a two $340,000 Technology Literacy Challenge Fund grants in successive years, coupled with Link-to-Learn and district funding, allowed the district to reduce the student to computer ratio drastically and purchase much needed software. E-rate supported the wiring of many buildings to complete a strong Local Area Network in all buildings and connections to a district Wide Area Network. Current planning efforts have included the aggressive seeking of additional grant funding, along with the continuous refinement of E-rate reporting. Administrators, School Board members, teachers and community members serving on the District Technology Committee will help build on these successes and seek additional support locally, statewide, and nationally.

Most barriers of future technology growth relate to student population growth. Teacher training is handcuffed as staff rose from 300 teachers to over 500 in just eight years. Facilities are taxed to provide classroom space, limiting the room for more than a few computers in each classroom and only one computer lab per building to serve an average of 500 students per building.

Funding is stretched, as the tax base is not growing proportionately to the students to educate, Leadership finds itself becoming managers and no longer curriculum leaders from the shear rapid growth. Currently we are investigating a differentiated, technology based training program to provide induction training and technology integration staff development to both current teacher and administrators. This will be cost effective and address the professional population of differing needs. Additional facilities have been created and future renovations to older buildings hope to ease the limitation of space. Funding has not been addressed other than the aggressive pursuance of grant funds to lesson some of the burden.

Lack of software and teacher time to build integrated lessons with technology has handicapped the use of technology as a tool in teaching and learning. Technical help remains a barrier as each technician has nearly 300 computers to maintain. Planned efforts to support change would be providing teacher training on basic trouble-shooting, thereby freeing technicians to address more complicated issues. Simplification and standardization of all computing resources and regular training for all technology staff could also remedy this situation.

Barriers facing community goals have been the time and identification of the person(s) to initiate these tasks. More strategies are needed to encourage the involvement of area business and community leaders.

The curriculum sub-committee consisted of an elementary teacher, intermediate enrichment teacher, high school principal, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, Instructional Technology Coordinator, and two high school students. The analysis considers data also used in the development of our strategic plan and needs assessment in two competitive grants.

Student achievement throughout the grade levels offers consistent growth in most cases, with pockets of upsurge at the intermediate levels. Student scores in the reading and writing areas far exceed that of gains in mathematics achievement. In an evaluation of technology infusion, it was found that 80% of teacher ranked technology infusion in reading at medium or high and 90% gave the same level to writing. Writing is our higher scoring area, as reading follows closely behind. Math scores fall sharply in comparison, as well as only 75% of teachers rank technology infusion in Math as none or low.

Interventions that may have impacted scores in the language arts area could be intensive staff development in phonological awareness, strong leadership of Reading Specialist, and a robust Title I program. This aligns with strategic plan findings that key on Math as an integral goal to increase student achievement.

Clearly, the district is facing a challenge amid mathematics achievement at all instructional levels. In an analysis of our local curriculum, identification of older textbooks (1993) and a curriculum based on outcomes, not standards has hampered student learning. Another factor explaining this deficiency is the lack of time devoted to Math. In nearly all levels, mathematics instruction is limited to 45 minutes per day and rarely integrated into other subjects. The discovery of low technology integration could also be a contributing factor. The lack of performance and authentic measurement during classroom learning also inhibits student transfer to PSSA testing. Often mathematics is taught with the Instructional practices of the Industrial Age, like teacher-centers, teacher in the role of fact teller and expert, student as listener and often instruction focuses on isolated study content.

Staff has the greatest access to technology resources at home with only 6% of teachers indicating they do not have a computer at home. All staff have access to the Internet from school and 82% of teachers have Internet/Email access from home. Although, few teachers have a computer for administrative functions within their classrooms, many have to use computer labs, libraries or resource rooms.

Due to the site-based management funding structure within the district for technology, there are significant variations in the technology skill levels of staff from school to school and department to department along with access to technology. The technology skills of our staff often do not exceed or equal the technology skills of your students.

An overwhelming amount of teachers (86%) believe technology to be a good motivator for teaching and learning and 95% of them take personal time to learn how to use it. Access to technology resources for daily instruction is difficult, but specialty classes are served well. Teachers would like to see more technology within the classroom, bringing the technology into the learning environment. Computer labs exist in every building, but are not as easily accessible as classroom computers.

More than 90% of elementary, middle, and high school teachers rank the current skill level in basic computer and technology use as medium or high while 82% rank productivity skills and Internet skills in the same span. The use of Hypermedia, multimedia and presentation software falls sharply with less than 40% ranking himself or herself at a medium or high level. The deficient in skills to integrate technology are even more staggering as only 8% rank themselves high in this area. The bright side is 51% of staff says they are willing to share their expertise with other staff members.

The Intermediate and High School teachers prefer to use technology resources at school and/or at home to support traditional instruction or just learning the basics of technology use, while some Elementary teachers indicate a level of use at integrating new technology into classroom activities. Most staff indicated they use it primarily for creating student handouts, correspondence, and/or lesson planning. Examples of effective curriculum and technology integration exist throughout the district in classrooms lead by veteran and new teachers alike and span the K-12 arena. It seems the heaviest use of technology is in the intermediate levels. Factors such as the team structure of the intermediate school instruction, the type of information within the curriculum at those grade levels, and the teacher technology skills could lead to this intense use of technology.

The same situation exists with our hardware because of the lack of a recurring funding source and replacement cycle for computers. With computers ranging from brand new to 7 years of age the quality varies greatly and upkeep and maintainance become difficult. Further, there are no district policies in place to infuence the quality of computers and software used in instructional vs. administrative settings. The quantity of computer equipment in various school locations is adequete but could improve. All grade schools lack a computer lab with more than 22 computers in it. This makes quality "hands-on" computer instruction very difficult. In addition, none of the high schools or middle schools have more than 1-2 computers in their classrooms. This makes spontanaity and curriculum integration more difficult.

Teachers stress that they would love to see a better variety and in general, more educational software. The software currently in use is very functional and covers the basics. More software is needed at the high school level for math, science, critical thinking, analysis and other important areas. Further, there are no district policies in place to infuence the quantity of computers and software used in instructional vs. administrative settings.

Distribution of technology in the district is generally equitable. Student to computer ratios are slightly higher at the high school level than the intermediate level. The intermediate level is then of course slightly higher than the grade school level. Among these divisions the district strives for equity and should achieve this in the upcoming year.

All teachers have access to a computer in their classroom and have access to computer labs when available. Primary instructional software packages include MS Office 2000 and 2001, Hyperstudio 4.0, inspiration 6.0 and Netscape for Internet access. The Director of Technology and Instructional Technology Coordinator insist that all software be curricullum driven, standards based and cross platform (Macintosh and MS Windows)but there are no policies in place to assure this is done.