The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education has called a special meeting to discuss unanswered questions about the district’s technology conversion plan approved during the board’s May 5 meeting.
“The called board meeting is to talk more in detail about the one-to-one initiative,” said Andrew Smith, the district’s director of digital innovation.
The plan would put laptops in the hands of all teachers and high school students, and provide an iPad for each third- through fifth-grader to use throughout the school year. Kindergartners through second-graders would have shared access to iPads at school as well.
The meeting will focus on explaining what this conversion looks like in other districts, as well as what it can do to help literacy skills.
Smith said the district is not “throwing technology at a problem,” but is putting a tool in the hands of Rowan-Salisbury educators who will undergo extensive professional development.
The technology department will provide demonstrations from an assistant principal and an elementary school teacher, as well.
The teacher will show how she uses iPads to encourage reading comprehension and “how she really enforces literacy through technology,” Smith said.
The board will discuss how other districts of similar sizes and demographics have already implemented a one-to-one digital conversion and the data surrounding achievements and literacy.
“We’re also going to discuss the lease in a little bit more detail,” Smith said.
The meeting will wrap up with a time for board members to ask any more questions they might have about the digital conversion plan, its educational value or the three-year lease to obtain the devices.
The called meeting will be held at 2 p.m. today in the Ellis Street Board Room at the district’s administrative offices, 314 N. Ellis St.