Meeting the Needs of Students

The Mountain Lakes School District is constantly self evaluating our technology needs/services and discussing the feedback on how to better serve the families and students of the district. Most recently we did this through the delivery of a district-wide survey sent to all families. Information collected from this survey helped our school district identify and define community access and discover any challenges students and families may experience.

• Students who need a chromebook and don’t have one or another dedicated computer at home will be provided a Chromebook to use.

• Various educational software will be utilized for management, analysis and instructional purposes depending on grade and curriculum needs.

• For classroom management purposes, PowerSchool, Canvas, or Google Classroom will be utilized. LinkIt! will be utilized for data analysis.

All programs and software utilized for instructional purposes will be approved using our district approval procedure and be HIPAA, COPPA and FERPA compliant.

Lessons Learned from the Spring

The spring’s sudden pivot to remote teaching that required the full incorporation of technology solutions into curriculum delivery was a heavy lift for staff, students, and teachers.

• Standardization of which technologies were used and how/when they were used was not fully appreciated at the time of the pivot

• Communications to students/families done solely from a digital interface created unanticipated new challenges

• Remote participation for assignments, discussions, and other graded activities required new or modified technology tools and techniques

Path Forward

We have reviewed the lessons learned and have been working to address the challenges remote learning presents to technology and subsequent training we provide the staff and students.

• New communication and collaboration tools and techniques:

  • Clever Family Portal and Single Sign On for many online applications

  • Google Classroom and Canvas minimum usage standards

  • Smoothwall Classroom Manager roll out

• Live classroom remote viewing:

  • HD camera in each classroom

  • Additional Document Cameras

  • Additional external monitors for teachers

  • BIG thank you to H&SA for funding $30k to enable this rollout!

• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) rollout so classes dependent on specific programs or computer technology can access them remotely

  • BIG thank you to MLEF for working with us on how to fund so we can deploy this new technology!

• Upgrading infrastructure for the increased traffic load:

  • New Firewall that will enable us to utilize more of our available bandwidth.

  • Lifecycle replacement of many Access Points in the High School.

  • Modifying existing network management configurations.

Continuous Service Improvement Operations

Taking the lessons learned and incorporating our path forward, we will be working to provide a continuous improvement of services delivered with technology by gathering input and feedback on the end user experience. This will complete our culture shift from a product focused model to a quality of service technology model.

• Regular internal meetings to gather input from Supervisors, Directors and Principals to proactively address issues that are arising and not wait till they fester.

• Deliver technology training sessions on key topics for staff and work with District Administrators Team to ensure clear communications on requirements of usage of technology.

• Emphasize usage of the new helpdesk system and self-help resources to provide accountability and shorten solution timelines.

• Establish and communicate clear expectations for technology services leveraged by the staff and students,

• Continually revise and search for new ways to address requirements where technology can provide improvements, while managing against fiscal responsibility, lifecycle management, and the realistic ability to train, support, and deploy those technology solutions.