By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
With the dawn of another school year, officials in the Waterford Graded School District are gearing up for a number of initiatives – including opportunities to harness the latest in 21st-century technology.
Members of the School Board’s Technology Committee met recently and discussed what is on the horizon in the 2012-13 school year.
One effort that is under way is a plan to update and upgrade the district’s official website, www.waterford.k12.wi.us.
Planned enhancements include heightened navigability and opportunities to link up to new technology, including mobile devices.
“This has been a work in progress throughout the summer,” Kannan Heath, district technology coordinator, said of the revamped website.
Last month, as preparations got under way for the new school year, the district continued its shift toward paperless techniques. Parents registered students online – either through a home computer or on a device at one of the district’s four schools.
During registration time, parents also had an opportunity to make payments online for school fees. Throughout the school year, a similar service will be offered for students participating in the hot lunch program.
There could be service fees involved with online payments, however. In some instances, $1 could be charged for an electronic transaction through a checking account and $2.45 per every $100 transaction for credit card payments.
Mary Stapenek, the district’s bookkeeper and office manager, said online payments have benefits from a logistical standpoint. Children no longer have to hold onto paper lunch tickets, for instance, and risk loss.
“We also don’t have to deal with checks that are NSF (non-sufficient funds),” Stapenek said. “That was very low with us, though, in the first place.”
Waterford Graded is entering its second year of the one-to-one laptop program. This school year, students in grades 7 and 8 will have laptops for coursework in a number of subject areas.
As with any new initiative, bugs and kinks are still being worked out with the overall initiative. But Heath and other district officials expressed pleasure with the inaugural year of the program and the respect students demonstrated toward the machines.
Throughout the past year, parents and students did air several concerns, including lengthy log-ins on certain occasions and a lack of technical support. Heath said those and other concerns will be taken into account in the sophomore year of the effort.
Waterford Graded also plans to continue maximizing its usage of social media whenever possible. The district has an official Facebook page, www.facebook.com/waterfordschools, as well as a Twitter account: @WaterfordGraded.
There were a few behind-the-scenes enhancements that took place over the summer while children were out of school. The district’s Internet server was updated, as was the level of phone service in some buildings.
“The technology department is looking forward to the new school year,” Heath said.
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