My review of a district's Technology Plan

RISD Vision Statement:  To achieve advanced proficiencies evolving technologies to support life-long learning and success.

Each school district in the state of Texas must have a Long-Range Technology Plan.  I chose to review the Technology Plan for Richardson ISD.  Richardson ISD is a district of 34,180 students with 49.5 % of the district being economically disadvantaged.

RISD has six goals in it's Technology Plan.  Goal 1:  We will expect our students to achieve academic excellence.  Goal 2:  We will have students that develop individual and civic responsibility.  Goal 3:  We will ensure that students have a safe learning environment.  Goal 4:  We will recruit and develop a highly qualified staff.  Goal 5:  To have a high degree of school and community satisfaction.  Goal 6:  Demonstrate fiscal responsibility, efficiency, and effectiveness in all operations.

I am really impressed with RISD's technology advancements that they have already made.  Their ratio of students to computers is 2 students to 1 computer.  They have been really aggressive in implementing technology in the school district.  It really shows how important of a priority the district has made in implementing technology.

RISD identified it's current technology needs.  Technology Resources:  To explore options for personal computing devices for students.  Staff Training:  To  provide professional development to keep staff up to date on best practices for technology.  Technical Support:  All systems to be upgraded on a regularly scheduled basis and to provide a vigorous and reliable infrastructure.  Existing Technology:  Provide opportunities for students to develop higher order thinking skills through technology.  Future Growth:  To use technology to provide information to parents and community.

RISD has an overall three year budget of $20,532,843.  For the 2010 school year $6,844.281.  has been allotted.  In this budget Teaching and Learning has the largest percentage, it is $13,807,417. over the three years.  The E-Rate contribution of the budget is $200,000 per year.  This is a very aggressive budget during hard economic times. 

RISD has many ways of evaluating the progress of the Technology Plan.  They use the STaR Chart as mandated by the state but they also use many other determining factors.  The school district has their own campus surveys and documentation to use.  AEIS-IT reports, Performance & Utilization reports, ERO statistics and many other student evaluations.  The school district also performs informal interviews of staff and students.

Many different departments are in charge of professional development.  RISD has an Instructional Technology department and also a Professional Development department.  The department chairs are in charge of coordinating the professional development for the district.

I believe this district is really moving forward in the right direction as far as implementing technology for the students and staff as well.  The budget that was created covers a wide variety of areas to be addressed.  They also have sufficient funding set aside for maintenance and repairs.  The website I used for review of their plan was http://www.risd.org/. 

In reviewing this district's technology plan I see that RISD has made great strides to ensurre that it is keeping up with the demands of the future to incorporate technology into the classroom.  Many school district's in the surrounding areas can use this district as a model as to what to strive for. All districts have room for improvement but this district seems to have tried to cover all areas so that there aren't as many.