School district to begin replacing classroom technology following board approval
The Kenai Peninsula Borough University District will update its growing old classroom technological innovation in a key way following acceptance by the Board of Education and learning on Monday. Over the up coming four yrs, the district will expend about $2.18 million to replace all 426 classroom display screen gadgets. That fleet of technological innovation incorporates 109 Good Interactive Flat Panels and 317 Clever Projectors.
Most of that know-how was released to Kenai Peninsula colleges in fiscal calendar year 2009, when the district utilised dollars from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the order. That’s according to KPBSD Finance Director Elizabeth Hayes, who outlined a 4-yr alternative program in a May 10 memo to board associates.
A lot more than 10 yrs later on, that technological know-how is showing signals of age.
Intelligent panels search sort of like huge iPads. Board President Zen Kelly compared them in the course of Monday’s conference to a chalkboard or whiteboard, but pointed out that they are a lot additional potent. Kelly explained his spouse, who’s a teacher, usually talks about damaged functions.
“It’s time for a technological know-how refresh and I consider this is the way to go,” Kelly said Monday.
In the first 12 months of the district’s four-year replacement strategy, about $530,000 will be applied to buy 103 new boards for school rooms. The district also strategies to expend about $530,000 on 104 boards in the following fiscal yr, about $570,000 on 111 boards in fiscal yr 2025 and about $550,000 on 108 boards in fiscal calendar year 2026.
These expense estimates incorporate a 15% uplift to mirror what Hayes called “recent selling price pressures,” and contain charges for the panel exhibit, mount, installation and skilled enhancement.
New boards likely to the same schools, Hayes wrote, will be grouped in the same alternative calendar year as a way to have consistent technological know-how at educational facilities. That consistency, she mentioned, will optimize the value and consistency of the specialist growth that goes into exhibiting educators how to use the newer technologies.
Educational institutions that have projector-centered technology, relatively than flat panel shows, will be prioritized in the replacement program to increase the amount of district classrooms utilizing flat panel know-how. Soon after technological innovation has been changed as section of the 4-year cycle, displays would be replaced on a likewise predetermined agenda.
Soldotna Significant University Librarian Tamra Have on, who testified in assist of acquiring new technological innovation, instructed board members Monday that the Good Boards now employed in school rooms are “antiquated” in spite of lecturers accomplishing every thing they can to retain the boards up and jogging.
“We’ve received to go ahead with anything and we have obtained to give the teachers one thing new — a new resource to do the job with,” Have on mentioned.
Board member Debbie Cary, who voted in aid of paying out the first spherical of dollars this fiscal 12 months, mentioned scheduling replacement of the technology out forward of time will allow the district to consider a proactive, vs . reactive, method.
“It’s the right factor to do for instructors to help them and to help employees, but also most importantly, to assistance learners,” Cary claimed.
The board voted unanimously to approve the four-yr substitution plan. The KPBSD Board of Education’s total Monday meeting can be considered on the board’s media web site at media.kpbsd.k12.ak.us.
Access reporter Ashlyn O’Hara at [email protected].




