Lawrence USD 497 school board

Every Lawrence high school student could be issued a MacBook starting next year as part of the district’s efforts to close its digital equity gap. On Monday, the school board will hear a recommendation from Jerri Kemble, the district’s assistant superintendent of innovation and technology, to do just that.

After a successful pilot program last fall that tested both iPads and MacBooks in Lawrence high school classrooms, Kemble and district leaders are asking the school board to consider the purchase of 4,000 MacBooks — one for each high school student and about 30 spares per high school, plus some to be distributed to blended-learning classrooms across the district’s elementary schools.

“School doesn’t end at 3 o’clock each day. The learning doesn’t end,” said Kemble, who helped supervise the rollout of iPads into middle school classrooms last year. “A lot of students report that they actually go deeper into their learning because they have the device and they can do some more research after school.”

Around 400 students — with their teachers’ supervision — took part in testing out iPads and MacBooks, spending nine weeks with each device, last fall as part of the district’s 1:1 pilot program. More than 70 percent of the teachers and administrators serving on the district’s Digital Learning Task Force found the MacBook to be the more effective learning tool of the two devices, Kemble said.

As with the iPads in middle schools, Kemble said, students at Lawrence High School and Free State High School will be expected to bring the laptops with them to class every day, just as they would other learning materials. The MacBooks, she said, can be used in a variety of settings — data entry during science experiments, for example, or creating presentations for English class.

“Kids are collaborating, reading each other’s work, providing feedback, which they wouldn’t be if they were using paper and pencil,” said Kemble, who also, as part of the Lawrence district’s research, visited nearby districts implementing their own 1:1 programs. “This just makes it so much easier. The communication piece is there.”

Lawrence, like other districts across the country, has become increasingly dependent on digital textbooks. As of the 2015-2016 school year, more than 90 percent of secondary school students districtwide were enrolled in one or more classes that relied on a digital textbook.

But, as of last spring, there were as many as 400 secondary school students in the district living without in-home internet access. Thanks to a $39,000 gift from the Lawrence Schools Foundation last fall for the purchase of 200 portable Wi-Fi devices, the district is increasingly closer to narrowing this digital equity gap.

The 4,000 MacBooks, if purchased, would cost the district more than $3 million, which would also include Apple Professional Learning and heavy-duty cases for each laptop. That’s with a fairly hefty educators’ discount from Apple — one that Kemble said is set to expire by the end of March.

The district’s aging laptops and textbooks are due for a replacement soon anyway, she added. “We would have to spend that money on either laptops or textbooks,” Kemble said of the funds she hopes to allocate on new MacBooks. A 1:1 program at the high school level makes more financial sense in the long run, she said.

“But also, we felt as if it’s a real equity problem, because some students have a device and others don’t,” Kemble said. “This really levels the playing field so that all students have a device and are able to work on it during after-school hours, so it’s not putting some ahead of others.”

In other business, the board will:

• Hear a report on the district’s Comprehensive, Integrated, Three-Tiered models, or Ci3T, from Kevin Harrell, executive director of student services, and Leah Wisdom, assistant director of student services. The program is meant to address the social, emotional and behavioral factors that can sometimes stand in the way of a student’s academic progress.
• Hear an update on the May 2 bond election, for which area voters will be asked to approve an $87 million renovation of Lawrence’s secondary schools, from Julie Boyle, the district’s director of communications.
• Be asked to approve a board policy committee recommendation regarding board governance and operation procedures.
• Vote to accept the resignation of board member Kristie Adair, who submitted her resignation to Superintendent Kyle Hayden on Friday. In her resignation letter, Adair cited scheduling conflicts with her business, as well as complaints against the board’s handling of technology and various “ethical challenges,” as the reasons behind her departure.

The board meets at 7 p.m. Monday at district headquarters, 110 McDonald Drive.