While pushing the Newberg School District toward digital conversion was one of the major projects with which Luke Neff was tasked when he was hired as instructional technology coordinator in 2014, more pressing short-term concerns have often pushed that issue to the back burner during his first eight months on the job.

Nonetheless, Neff presented the school board with some important budget estimates at its meeting Jan. 27, when he delivered his quarterly update on the state of technology in the district.

The bad news was that implementing a comprehensive digital conversion plan, of which a major component is supplying devices like laptops and tablets to students at a 1-to-1 (1:1) ratio, will cost significantly more than what the district is spending on technology.

The good news was the IT department has already completed some important projects and that in addition to seeing a way forward on digital conversion as he continues to research the issue, serious planning discussions are on the horizon.

Some of the beginning stages of that planning will take place at a March board work session with Super­in­ten­dent Kym LeBlanc-Esparza, Neff and teaching and learning director Stafford Boyd. From there, Neff hopes to form a team to lead the digital conversion this spring.

“So we’re getting some great systems in place, but there’s a lot that goes into digital conversion, which I think will be awesome, Neff said. “It’s just not going to happen overnight, it’s going to take some work.”

Neff informed the board that much of his time has been spent dealing with myriad problems stemming from the electronic student-information system, specifically the functionality of the grade-book aspect of the program for elementary school teachers.

The program, Neff reported, is up and running, while a formal system to handle IT requests is nearing completion, which should also help free him up for more big-picture work moving forward.

Neff provided the board with his most detailed analysis of the budgetary needs of digital conversion, which came with a bit of sticker shock as he estimates the difference between what the district now spends on IT ($763,000) and what it will need to ($1,587,575 million) amounted to a whopping $817,000.

The new budget represents what the district would need to spend by the end of a three-year digital conversion roll out, but Neff said it will involve a lot of different voices, and ultimately the board’s, in order to determine the rate at which the district would ramp up funding to that level.

As Neff has learned, digital conversion means doing a lot more than simply purchasing enough machines for students and he broke the budget down into four main categories: staff machines, network and infrastructure, student devices and Tech department support.

For example, the district currently spends $62,500 per year on staff machines, replacing laptops on a six-year cycle that doesn’t budget any funds for breakage.

Neff estimated that it will cost $155,000 annually to meet the needs of digital conversion, which he said would require providing teachers with both a laptop and a tablet on four-year replacement cycles that accounts for repairs according to a 3 percent breakage rate.

“That is a big jump, but if we want to do it well, this is what we’re looking at,” Neff said. “We want to have a laptop and a tablet for each teacher. That seems to be the chalkboard and chalk of the 21st century to have that tablet as well.”

The district is in the process of applying for an E-rate grant, which could provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for network and infrastructure upgrades, which Neff has estimated at $350,000 annually, up from the current figure of $189,500.

The biggest increases would come in the student devices ($301,575) and tech department support ($270,000) categories.

Money from the most-recent bond has funded the district at a 0.59:1 student-to-device ratio, but in terms of annual costs, the current budget could sustain just a 0.23:1 ratio, meaning this district would lose ground on that ratio if it didn’t provide more funding moving forward.

To help explain the difference between the current and projected tech department support budget, Neff pointed out that it takes about 12 hours of labor to set up a an iPad to operate correctly in the educational setting.

In the projected budget, Neff added three full-time employees to the tech department, not only to handle such labor, but also to oversee Synergy, third-party applications and tech support across the district.

“I’m really hopeful in bringing us closer to where other districts are at in terms of tech department staffing,” Neff said. “When you look at that device-to-student ratio and then you look at the tech staff-to-student and tech staff-to device ratios, we’re behind the curve. That will be a big step toward getting us caught up.”

While the numbers may seem daunting, Neff said he is encouraged that learning from other districts’ successes and failures will help make Newberg’s process smoother.

For instance, massive failures have occurred when districts have tried to roll digital conversion out in one big wave, while on the other hand, the Canby school district is a good example of a successful transition that is right in Newberg’s back yard.

He also added that while other districts moved forward earlier on digital conversion during the recent recession, Newberg instead put its focus on maintaining reasonable class sizes.

Assistant superintendent Dave Parker noted that digital conversion is not simply about getting devices into students’ hands, but more about how teachers use those tools efficiently and effectively.

That’s why partnering with Boyd on curriculum and professional development to train teachers on new technologies will be yet another vital aspect to a successful conversion to digital learning.

“We want it to be a catalyst for a new way of teaching,” Neff said. “To do that well, there’s a lot of work to get done.”

By Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic