Inos OKs $7.4M technology plan for public schools

Acting governor Eloy Inos signed yesterday the Public School System’s technology plan that aims to secure $7.4 million in total funding for school year 2012 through 2015.

Education Commissioner Rita A. Sablan, along with Board of Education members and other PSS officials, presented to Inos the 87-page grant application that will be submitted to the School and Library Division.

The technology plan requires the approval of the Executive Branch and the lieutenant governor was the designated signatory of the document, according to Sablan.

A PSS executive committee put together the plan by seeking comments from all public schools and collating all submitted documents. The Board of Education approved the plan on June 30.

Joe Torres, PSS E-rate coordinator, said yesterday that the plan establishes clear goals and a realistic strategy for using telecommunications and information technology to improve education or library services.

The plan has a professional development strategy to ensure that staff knows how to use the new technologies and also includes an assessment of telecommunications services, hardware, software, and other services that will be needed to improve education.

It also has an evaluation process that enables the school or library to monitor progress toward specific goals and make mid-course corrections in response to new developments and opportunities as they arise.

According to federal programs officer Tim Thornburgh, once approved, the Schools and Library Division will pay for 85 percent of the entire technology cost of the plan; the remainder will be covered by the local budget of the school system.

Board member Herman T. Guerrero said the plan will help PSS give equal learning opportunities to students on three islands through its distance learning program.

Based on the plan, PSS expects to complete all network upgrades by 2015. This includes an overall network restructure, activation of additional bandwidth, and replacement of current video teleconferencing equipment. In addition, the system will also install a central wireless system at all junior and high school and will implement a longitudinal database system to improve the quality and accessibility of federal and local reporting needs. The educational technology plan needs $2.477 million in the first year of implementation.

The commissioner said the plan is based on the BOE-approved CNMI Technology Program standards and benchmarks.