Summary
Calcasieu Parish in Lake Charles, Louisiana, is home to a county-wide public school district unique in its large geographic size, socioeconomic diversity, and cultural diversity. It is also unique in its highly successful ed-tech programs. Starting with a professional development program for teachers that launched in 1998, the district has progressed to a standardized, district-wide technology program that serves students, parents, and administrators well. A telling proof-point of the district’s success: 90% of its students attend the public schools, confident they will receive the 21st-century skills they’ll need to succeed.
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Case Study: Calcasieu Parish Schools
The Calcasieu Parish School System is positioned in Southwest Louisiana (U.S.). It’s a district is unique in its geographic size and cultural diversity; we serve 34,000 students in a 1036-square-mile region comprising rural, suburban, and urban areas, some of which are underdeveloped and deeply impoverished. Adding to our uniqueness, despite the broad range of socioeconomic and cultural differences within the parish, we are well established in terms of technology, both within the state and nationally.
Early adoption
We started our technological journey in 1998, long before the concept of technology as a critical education resource had arrived. Drawing on my early professional background as a library-media specialist, it was somewhat natural for me to visualize the use of technology for education reform. That early experience, combined with my background in teaching, learning, and administration, allowed me to look strategically at how we could use technology to support our education goals.
Technology for all
Thus began a massive professional development program—our Classroom-Based Technology (CBT) project. Under its auspices, our teachers receive hardware, software, and ongoing training to build expertise on technology in the classroom. Driven by a deep, abiding sense that professional development is not optional, we show our teachers how to use technology to create an active learning environment that truly engages learners. While diversity is expected and necessary on many fronts, educational technology is not one of them. We work across departments in the district to standardize our technology—specifically, using Blackboard—as our learning management system. Via our e-learning portal, in-depth knowledge, assistance, and development tools are available at our teachers’ fingertips, 24×7. A face-to-face component exists as well, but it is embedded within the online component, which means that we don’t need to pull teachers out of classrooms for training and collaboration anywhere near as often as we had to in the past. While we may have had to drag a few instructors into the technology fold, I’m confident in saying that now all of our teachers clearly understand the use of technology in the classroom.We leverage this “hybrid learning” model for our students, too. Students of course come to school during the day, but they also perform many activities online—across schools, grade levels, and curriculum. To ensure online access for all students, including those from economically challenged families (the district is at 73% E-rate discount), Calcasieu Parish Schools created the CPSB-AIR program. The “AIR” stands for “access to Internet resources,” and the program provides a high-speed broadband connection—very secure, and very reliable—at each campus location and to every desktop. The AIR network enables student to bring their own Internet-capable devices to school and connect to the resources that the Internet provides. All classrooms have multiple computers for student use, including many laptops, and we’ve worked with our local public libraries and community centers to make sure they have computer labs available for student and parent access. Starting fall 2010, students will be able to bring their own devices to school. While this may be controversial in some circles, the rationale for this “lowering of the shields” is simply my belief that a) bountiful learning opportunities occur when all students have access, but b) we will never have funding in this country to give public-school students all of the technology they need. Given that the price of personal Internet devices is lowering rapidly, I believe we should take advantage of devices that students can provide on their own. Whatever those devices may be, the fact is, when kids are online, they are reading—and as a former librarian, reading is the holy grail. Beyond teachers and students, our online environment is accessible by our parents, who can log in to view student progress. This gives the district so much more transparency, as well as shared accountability. The old story of “No, I don’t have any homework” no longer flies!
Community commitment
This transparency is part of our commitment to our community: We’re going to provide a world-class educational environment for our kids, and we’re genuinely interested in community feedback for improvement. A telling proof-point of our success is that 90% of the students in this district—far beyond the national average—attend our public schools. Because we provide a superior public-education opportunity, parents are confident that their children will receive the world-class education they deserve.Our community is very proud and accepting of the fact that this district is technologically advanced. The publicity we’ve received around major ed-tech awards has given us the community support we need. The parents here understand that their children will need to compete in a global knowledge economy, and appreciate the fact that we’re giving them the knowledge they’ll need to do so successfully. Namely, the Calcasieu Parish Schools teach students to become lifelong learners: to find information and to apply what they find, to work collaboratively and problem-solve creatively—21st-century skills to last a lifetime.
It’s the strategy
I believe strategic planning is the cornerstone to the ongoing success of our ed-tech programs. For example, when we were awarded one-time federal stimulus funds, instead of distributing federal money in bits and pieces to individual schools, we worked to apply short-term funds to achieve long-term results, investing heavily in an expansive technology project designed to improve schools and transform learning district-wide.We created a connected-classroom model, employing technology such as electronic whiteboards, netbooks, and handheld student-response devices. We brought in all of our teachers for training, employed special staff for field training, and built a special space in our portal where teachers could search and share lesson resources. Having achieved successful uptake from the teachers, we moved on to garner essential top-down support. We brought in our principals and built an assessment tool they use for authentic educational assessment. This received a lot of positive feedback from the principals, who, as school leaders, are so very accountable for education and transformation. In tandem with the assessment tool, in fall 2010 we’re starting the iLEAD (Leading Education and Academic Development) project, which will give all of our principals iPads loaded with applications that facilitate mobile assessments.We base our strategic planning on Baldridge quality principles—aiming for continuous improvement, to guide our work and keep us always moving forward toward success. We’ll never be done; as the world changes, grows, and evolves, and as the tools of learning evolve, and as competition becomes fiercer, we must constantly up our game. We must be innovative, inventing strategies to keep students engaged to ensure their long-term success.–