Washoe County School District (WCSD) trustees on Tuesday approved a plan to purchase new laptops—those used by teachers, staff or students—on a five-year cycle.
“Two years ago there was a recognition that the Washoe County School District required a comprehensive plan for how technology was used in the district,” Chief Information Officer Chris Turner told trustees, adding that”the district hasn’t had a technology renewal plan in anyone’s recent memory.”
Turner first presented to the board in August during the initial stages of developing such a plan, and then to the district’s Capital Funding Protection Committee in December. He explained that among the first things to be done was establishing some idea of how many computers and laptops the district owns—just over 56,000, of which 17,000 have come into its possession since the return of students to classrooms in August.
The potential benefits of having a set plan for device renewal, according to Turner, include providing equitable technology opportunities across schools, leveraging large-scale pricing discounts when buying devices, removing the burden for purchasing devices that currently falls upon school principals and creating a way to predictably onboard, rotate and eventually dispose of devices in a responsible way when they reach the end of their lifecycles.
Chief Financial Officer Mark Mathers, who for the past year has detailed budget shortfalls, explained to trustees the funding proposed to pay for the new plan.
“This is a little bit of a role reversal for me,” he told trustees. “I’m not coming to you for cuts or proposals for reductions.”
Three sources for funding the plan have been identified, he said. The first is to use interest earnings on the district’s debt service fund, which are currently just being saved. The second—and largest—source would come from property tax revenues of the district that exceed what’s necessary to pay for debt services on its rollover bonds. The third would come from revenues received by the district for leasing cell tower space on school property—money that’s normally split with the schools where towers are located.
Mathers stressed that property tax revenues would only be allocated after the district’s debt service on bonds was paid each year, but said he believes that the combined amount of money from these sources that the district would be able to delegate each year toward purchasing new devices would range from $2.35 to $4.35 million.
The board approved the new plan unanimously.
“It’s scary to think about in the days we live in now that we haven’t had a plan,” said Board President Angie Taylor. “If we didn’t know we needed one before now, we certainly know that we need it based upon the times that we’re in.”
English Language program changes draw criticism
The board also heard a presentation by Janeen Kelly, director of the district’s English Language (EL) Development Department, outlining proposed changes to the way the district provides instruction and English learning opportunities to students whose first languages are not English. These proposed changes have been spurred on in part by the impending implementation of Nevada’s new K-12 funding model, which will be phased in to replace the more than half-century old Nevada Plan.
Kelly told trustees the district has 9,270 EL students, 86% of whom were born in the United States and 14% of whom are immigrants or refugees. While the majority of them are Spanish speakers, the district also has students whose first language is Tagalog, Filipino, Vietnamese, Swahili, French and Arabic among others.
Over the past two years, WCSD has been implementing strategies other than the traditional method of pulling EL students out of their classes for English language instruction. According to Kelly, this traditional method often results in students missing out on learning core concepts in their regular classes.
“Language is not taught in isolation,” she said. “For many, many years we were doing pull-outs with our students, and they were missing intensive instruction that was happening in the classroom.”
The new strategy involves using what Kelly’s department refers to as EL site directors. These are people with EL teaching credentials—and, while they do work with groups of EL students in some context, they largely help coordinate with teachers to help them design lesson plans to use explicit language instruction through regular class content and can co-teach in some circumstances.
Kelly’s department is proposing that the EL site director model be phased in over the course of three years—in tandem with the new K-12 funding model. Over the course of those three years, 13 traditional EL teaching jobs would be eliminated, and those teachers would be routed into other teaching assignments.
According to Chief Financial Officer Mathers, the plan would make sense with the new pupil centered funding model the state is phasing in. That model will put a priority of funding students within weighted categories like EL at the same level regardless of where they attend school.
Both Kelly and Chief Academic Officer Troy Parks said that transitioning the EL model would require intensive professional development training for teachers during the first several years. This was something that raised concerns among the trustees, who expressed worries about whether teachers could take any additional pressure to do more while the district is still dealing with the repercussion of the COVID-19 pandemic and working on a two-year plan to address and recover from student learning loss and delays over the past year.
“Arriving to a country where everything is unknown is already hard as it is. And, on top of that, there’s the language barrier.”
Trustee Kurt Thigpen also expressed concerns for students, saying EL students might feel particularly overwhelmed in their general education classes without traditional EL support and classes. Trustee Diane Nicolet echoed his sentiments and mentioned that large class sizes in the district might further complicate things for both students and teachers.
Following this presentation, trustees heard dozens of public comments. It was noted that many times more were also submitted to the board in writing.
Among those who spoke during the meeting was Melanie Reeves, who has been an EL teacher at Sparks High School for 16 years. She told the trustees she worried the new plan might amount to setting EL teaching back to “the 1920s when they just brought the students in and sat them in a classroom” without much regard for how they would learn.
“I became an EL teacher because of a child that sat in my lap and cried during recess 30 years ago because she went from ‘green’ to ‘red’ [a disciplinary tactic] and couldn’t go out because she couldn’t understand and follow the directions of a teacher. It was an elementary school,” Reeves said.
She added that she believes in-classroom instruction for EL students that integrates core subjects with EL elements can be effective. She also said that she recognizes the potential pitfalls of pulling EL students out of regular classes for English instruction, but added, “Please, our students matter. They all matter. … They come here for an education in Washoe County to make their lives better. We can’t just deny them that because of budget. I know it’s important. I know money is important to us. But our lives, our future are our children—and that’s why we teachers are here.”
The board also heard from former and current WCSD EL students. Among them was McQueen High School senior Dana Olivas, whose family came to the U.S. five years ago.
“My life changed the first day I stepped onto the school grounds,” Olivas said. “I came with the idea that this country is a place of opportunity where you can be whoever you want to be and dream as high as you want—but I realized it wasn’t that easy. Arriving to a country where everything is unknown is already hard as it is. And, on top of that, there’s the language barrier.”
Olivas told trustees she was certain many people thought she would drop out halfway through high school but that this changed quickly as she was provided with the district’s traditional EL resources.
“The EL program helped me tremendously,” she said. “I will never have the words to thank them enough for their support to this program. The English construction was essential to me, as it is to many people. It helps you in every way you can think of, from forming sentences and grammar to understanding concepts about culture and feeling integrated in other classes.”
Olivas said her EL instruction is the reason she feels prepared to enter college following graduation. She left the trustees with a quote: “Education doesn’t change the world. It changes the people who will change the world.”
After discussing the proposed changes and hearing these public comments, trustees chose not to take action on the proposed changes to EL programming and opted to instead bring it back at a future meeting for further discussion.
