The Newberg School District received its bond money earlier this month and has already traded some cash for equipment.
The purchase of 300 computers and an unknown number of math textbooks has been made and the gear is now in the basement of the district offices.
District communication specialist Claudia Stewart said the computers were refurbished and warranted machines. About 250 of them will be for students in various computer labs across the district, while the remainder will go to staff, both teaching and nonteaching.
The units will replace a fleet of computers still mostly made up of eMacs, of which the latest models have not been manufactured since July 2006. She added that the district would replace electronic equipment over the next two to three years, with the oldest machines replaced first. “We’ve got a staggered replacement program,” she said, explaining that the district instituted the plan to avoid having all the machines reach obsolescence simultaneously.
The district also plans to install one computer, one document camera and one smart board in each classroom. The document camera is simply a digital version of an old-fashioned overhead projector.
Smart boards work with the classroom computer and teachers can choose from a variety of standard applications as well as download new ones. The boards allow for the recording of students’ work, among a plethora of other functions.
Stewart said the district has also purchased licenses for Odysseyware, an online-based credit recovery program.
The district, which like many in Oregon is several years behind in buying textbooks, purchased math textbooks for fourth and fifth grade but will delay purchases for other subjects. Director of curriculum Terry McElligott is also investigating two online-based writing programs for middle school and high school students.
“To be a good writer, you need regular feedback,” Stewart said. McElligott said that one of the programs is closer to what the state utilizes for its testing, while the other is more similar to what students taking the SAT would be presented with. Some of the highlights are that a student can be tracked over several grades, as they have individual log-ins that keep track of their historical performance.
“You really get to see what was happening with that kid,” McElligott said as she navigated a model. Not only did it break down students’ scores in six different areas of writing, it included how long they’d spent on the task.
McElligott said that this year mathematics and science faculty should make recommendations for textbook purchases next spring. Part of the delay is that the state plans to switch core standards to a national model, she said, and districts want to make sure they buy the right textbooks, as adoptions are made on a seven-year rotation.
Laurent Bonczijk, The Newberg Graphic