Perris, CA Ð Just as officials put the finishing touches on a two-year effort to bring NEXTSTEP to every wired classroom in the Val Verde Unified School District, they began to gear up for a fight to keep the technology in place.
The entire five-seat school board is up for re-election this November, and opponents of the KÐ12 district's computer solution could shut down the system if they gain a majority on the new board. Val Verde is a relatively new district and is growing rapidly, explained District Superintendent Leona Williams, so the current board has seen the wisdom of putting a strong technology infrastructure in place now rather than in the future.
There are people who think "we're spending too much [on technology]," said Darrell Lynn, director for MIS and technology. "But there's too much at stake here. There's a national consensus emerging about the importance of technology in schools."
Lynn cited a recent University of Riverside survey that listed "computers and learning" as the top concern of parents, community, and business leaders in the school district's area.
To get the message out about Val Verde's accomplishments, Lynn has spoken before the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in Washington, DC, and on panels at NeXTWORLD Expo in May.
But the district's strongest message will come from its successes. Every classroom that is wired with the FDDI (fiber distributed data interface) backbone to the district's T1 Ethernet system now has at least one machine. The district's custom School Information System, to manage all grades, attendance records, transcripts, and bus scheduling, is under development. And user accounts for all students were due to come on-line by year end. "The students will be up and Internet surfing in no time," Lynn said.
Rancho Verde high school has an art lab under construction, with five NeXTstations outputting work via the Internet direct to service bureaus' Linotronic imagesetters, as well as the district's second Mathematica classroom. And the high school will soon offer NEXTSTEP programming classes.