Officials look to
AUSD future
at Strategic Planning meetings
By Lori
Bledsoe
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — The Alpine Union School District held its first
Strategic Planning meeting on Thursday, Oct. 22, inviting
teachers, administrators and parents to get involved in the
advancement of Alpine students’ educational process.
Greg Ryan, the AUSD Superintendent, introduced the
forum and invited all who attended to join in on three different
discussions that were targets for this years Strategic plan.
This year schools are being challenged to provide a
viable education, challenging rules in curriculum and
instruction, which also calls for parent involvement in addition
to teacher and administrative involvement.
One of the key areas this year is technology. Ryan
mentioned that he felt that technology might be a key issue in
the district that needed attention.
Ryan imparted his idea that the district can use
technology to enhance the learning environment in the district.
He acknowledged that “things are changing fast” and student now
are expected to do and learn so much more. Technology in itself
can help to achieve the educational challenges that are facing
the schools.
As groups separated, the Technology group had several
issues to discuss. One of the issues was to acquire more
hardware at the school sites for the students. This issue was
coupled with the concerns that the current economic situation is
causing with the closing of tech and computer labs.
Everyone in this group agreed that computer access for
the students is a priority. They spoke about the foundation of
computer literacy in knowing the computer keyboard, starting
children as early as third grade in keyboarding techniques.
It was mentioned that typing skills are also a priority
as even at the district words per minute typing skills have to
be at least 70 words-per-minute, and in some colleges, they are
asking for more than that. Some sixth graders in the district
are now required to word process almost every assignment to
support these skills.
Knowing the hardware and software of a computer was
also discussed. Many students, as young as first grade can
easily navigate the Internet. However, knowledge of software
programs to run those web pages that they navigate to was
discussed.
Understanding the technological processes in each
program, helps people to communicate and navigate other programs
as well. But, it was mentioned that middle school was the
appropriate age to really address this, rather than elementary
because elementary aged students still need a foundation to work
from.
Discussions continued on the best way to implement
software, and hardware education into the schools, and the
Strategic Planning Group will reconvene on Nov. 16 to review all
the input from each group and all their discussions.
If you would like to be a part of this process, or you
have viable information for our Alpine Schools please contact
the Alpine Union School District offices for the time of the
next meeting, 445-3236,
alpineschooldistrict.net.
 E-mail
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