| Huntington Elementary teacher, Claron Durrant and student, Draydon Balone, work with the new Smartboards purchased with school trustlands monies. |
Each year local schools are required to publicize what they do with their school trustlands monies as part of the grant process.The Huntington Elementary School Trustlands Committee and School Improvement Committee is very active in improving the learning at Huntington Elementary. The funds from the trustlands these past seven years have been well used in obtaining the necessary items needed to keep this school functioning at a higher level. This past year has been no exception. The trustlands monies were used for an update for the Yearly Progress Pro. The YPP is a tracking system for math progress for all grade levels in the computer lab.
With the YPP, the student’s weekly progress in math is monitored. This gives the teachers a current knowledge of where each student stands; therefore serving their individual needs more precisely. Teachers have also been using this information to give accurate and specific whole group instruction.
There is a per student cost for this program and it recently raised from $6.99 per student to $7.99. The school will continue to upgrade and use this software each year to track the students progress in math.
Another area where the trustlands money was used is the purchase of seven LCD projectors.
Along with the projectors, the needed wiring and related equipment was purchased such as replacement bulbs. These LCD projectors are used in conjunction with the Smartboards. The school now has Smartboards in each of the classrooms. These Smartboards are amazing technology and the teachers have been trained on them extensively. “The students are really excited and willing to learn with the addition of these Smartboards,” said Claron Durrant, committee chairman.
| The progress of the students in math is kept by the Yearly Progress Pro math program. |
“Smartboards increase the teacher’s ability to introduce concepts to the students. It has also reached the kinesthetic learners, visual learners and auditory learners in an even broader sense.
“We believe the connection between educational technology and our student’s future learning and success is crucial. We need to provide an education which will help our students truly succeed. Technology in the classroom becomes increasingly important as jobs become more technical each year and advances are made at a rapid pace. We must stay actively involved in our student’s education to see that our public schools keep pace in this rapidly changing environment. We believe the installation of these Smartboards goes a long way in helping Huntington Elementary keep up.
“One advantage to using Smartboards with a group is it doesn’t isolate students at individual computers. All students are interacting at the same time, as they all see they same thing on the screen. The large screens help children to be able to see what’s going on. Students retain the information they learn because they are more engaged and motivated in the classroom.
“The list could go on and on. We are grateful for the opportunity we have had to purchase these Smartboards this past year with our school trustlands monies. We are looking forward as a commitee to meeting together on a monthly basis to plan for the use of next year’s monies,” said Durrant.