(Corrections and updates, noted in red, have been made in this article including changing tablets to laptops, 8-21-15)
Next Monday students at Kennedale High School will walk into a changed school. Plans that have been in the making for a number of years have become reality this year. {{more}}
The current high school was open in the spring of 1999 and was built with the thought that classrooms would be added as needed. Since the 1999 school year the high school enrollment has increased approximately 47%.By 2007 more classrooms, a gym, a performance center and athletic complex had been added along with a second story unfinished space for future growth.
This year the planned second story at the high school will opened with classroom space for new and developing programs.
But, along with the new classrooms comes a dramatic change in how information is going to be provided to the students this year. Students at the high school will receive a laptop – most will be chromebooks.
This year KHS students will be using computer laptops in the classroom
With these laptops students will be able to access their textbooks on line along with supplemental teaching/reading material, tutorials, classroom assignments and more. Gone will be the need for students to lug around textbooks. There will still be some classroom sets and some textbooks that are not yet available online. These textbooks will be available for students to take home as needed.
Students will be able to access the school?s internet server with its safety protocols. At home the student will be able access their assignments, textbooks and research on line using the family internet provider.
Those students without internet access at home will be able
to stay late at school through the ACE program to use the school?s
internet. ACE does provides a late bus for
students in the program.
Each laptop will have a three to four year warranty and students will be expected to treat them as a school issued textbook that has to be returned each year with no more than normal ?wear and tear?. Students will not be able to download programs or apps that
have not been previously approved by the district, this includes gaming apps. At the end of the year each laptop will be
turn in to the school and will be ?wiped cleaned? for re-issue the following
year. The school will maintain an
anti-virus program on all school issued devices.
The roll-out of the laptops will take place over the first several weeks of school. Those in career/tech program will received them starting the first week of school (approximately 350). The rest of the laptops will be issued after September 1 with the beginning of the new budget year for the school district.
This change to computer laptops has been part of a long range plan for technology in the classroom for some time. It, along with the addition of the second story, has also presented an opportunity that has been discussed by high school administrative staff for many years ? eliminating the use of student lockers.Former high school principals Rick Edwards and Rita Pintavalle talked about a no locker policy, citing other schools that have eliminated student lockers but both wanted to wait until there were alternatives to textbooks. Justin Marchel, in his second year as KHS principal, has been able to take advantage of the new laptops to make the ?no locker? change this year.
Student lockers have always presented administrators with challenges including; lost combinations or locks that wouldn?t work; places to stash ?illegal substances?/stolen items or as targets for theft; and, scheduling enough time between classes for students to get their books and get to their next class. In addition the staff was always been amazed at the end of the year at the contents of the lockers as left by the students from brand new coats, jackets to unopened school supplies to rotten apples and sandwiches. This year added the problem of students rushing up or down stairs to get to their lockers and then to the next class.
KHS Principal Justin Marchel making an earlier presentation
to the KISD school board
Referring to himself and the assistant principals, Mr. Marchel said,?None of us have been schools in ten years that have had them. We are going to try to make this as streamlined as possible. That is the key to this whole thing. Streamline the time so that we get more time in the class. That is the whole reason for doing away with the lockers. So much time was spent trying to get to their locker, getting around people standing in front of their lockers with hallways almost completely blocked. We are taking the time saved and putting in back into the classroom.”Marchel added, ? And, it was a gawd-awful mess in cleaning them out.?
Students will be allowed to take backpacks to class although there shouldn?t be much to keep in the bag. What?s recommended for high school students are the smaller book bags with enough space to put in the laptop, pens/pencils, and other classroom material plus room to keep a lunch bag and store a jackets or coat, if needed. The backpack or book bag should be something the size that can fit underneath a desk. But, no one will be required this year to go buy a smaller backpack if they have already purchased one.
There are skeptics among some students, staff and parents, as generations of students have grown up with the idea of personal lockers at school. According to Marchel, it works at other schools so he believes that it will be successful here once everyone has a chance to adjust.One thing is for sure, teacher will never again hear ?I left it in my locker.?
