By Kevin McLaughlin
The Irvington School District recently held two Google Meet’s for parents to discuss the future of technology at Irvington schools. Instead of showing parents a presentation of the future technology plans, these meetings were used more as a way to hear feedback from parents. All parents present on the meet were asked to answer three questions, “What is one thing you like about Irvington’s technology? One thing you would change? One thing you would add?”
The problem was that for the first meeting, only six parents from students at every Irvington school were in attendance. Meanwhile, there were eight administrators there to take in the feedback (such as Dows Lane principal Mrs. Kanter, MSS principal Mrs. Chapnick, IMS assistant principal Mrs. Daley, IHS assistant principal Mrs. DeFilippis, and Director of Technology Mr. Strumwasser).
The original plan was to split up parents into breakout rooms with an administrator in each, taking note of what parents said. However that idea was scratched when it became apparent that there wouldn’t be enough parents to split up. The meeting was originally planned to take one hour, but with the small number of parents it was over after 35 minutes.
One common theme from parents’ responses was the liking of the district wide chromebook distribution. While this is not as important for IHS, with many students having their own laptops, it is crucial for younger students who do not have a laptop, as well as families who cannot supply their children with one.
Mr. Strumwasser provided some general goals for the district technology in the future. Such as “all learners will have access to a range of digital resources”, and “all learners will develop skills to adapt to our culturally diverse and rapidly changing world”. In regards to teachers, he stated, “In order to help students, we have to help staff.”
