The Rye City School District Technology Committee, headed by Board member Blake Jimes-Storey, is putting together a shopping list with a budget of $286,000, courtesy of Governor Cuomo’s Smart Schools Bond Act of 2014.

By Sarah Varney

The Rye City School District Technology Committee, headed by Board member Blake Jimes-Storey, is putting together a shopping list with a budget of $286,000, courtesy of Governor Cuomo’s Smart Schools Bond Act of 2014.

The Committee is working on a plan that will outline exactly what software and hardware the District needs to modernize its system. The New York State Education Department has given schools a February deadline by which to submit plans.

For Rye City schools, an aging infrastructure, connection speed, access for devices, and management of demand or bandwidth are all issues.

“This is a big part of upgrading the infrastructure. Internet access, which may incorporate the latest cat 8 cable, is almost like a utility now. You don’t walk into a room and flip the light switch and not have the lights go on,” said Jines-Storey.

In addition to sometimes spotty Internet access, plenty of school equipment needs upgrading. Rye High students complain of laptop carts with ancient laptops, iPad carts which lack enough working keyboards for a class, printing difficulties, and access issues with the school’s Bring Your Own Device policy. Referring to out-of-date equipment Jines-Storey said, “There needs to be a set plan in place to replace these things.”

Parity among the three elementary schools is also of concern to Jines-Storey. “There are laptop carts at Milton, but the students at Midland have Cromebooks,” he noted. Osborn students also use laptop carts. A successful pilot program last year at Midland resulted in a cache of iPads, enough for a single class.

As for software, Google Classroom may make sense long term, said Jines-Storey. It allows collaboration, document storage, and includes Gmail. Google Docs is already in wide use at Rye High and it’s likely that these tools will migrate downward first to the Middle School and then to the elementary schools. And the best part about Google Classroom and Google Docs? It’s pretty much free for schools.