
{"id":24620,"date":"2012-03-22T10:24:11","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T14:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=24620"},"modified":"2012-03-21T17:08:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T21:08:47","slug":"budget-woes-hit-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/03\/22\/budget-woes-hit-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget woes hit technology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Rose Laudicina<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer <\/em><\/p>\n<p>At a public hearing last Thursday on the 2012-13 budget, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education heard from school technology specialists expressing concern that the money allocated for technology upgrades would not be enough to meet increasing demands.<\/p>\n<p>Because of a new mandate coming down from the state that will require the district to switch to computerized testing by 2014, Ray Reitz, chief technology officer for the district, said that the money in the budget allocated for upgrades will go toward purchasing laptops for testing. <\/p>\n<p>For next year, Reitz said the technology upgrades budget would be getting $202,000 from the district\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Capitol Improvement Plan (CIP), $95,000 from the quarter-cent sales tax funds and $271,000 in funds that were left over from this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget in anticipation of the new mandate. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We need to start as soon as possible to meet this mandate, building up not only the amount of devices we have, but also beefing up support and Internet access,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jason Bales, the technology specialist at Culbreth Middle School, told the school board. <\/p>\n<p>In order to support a 2-to-1 computer-to-student ratio, Reitz said he estimates the district will need around $500,000 annually. That does not include funds necessary to make other much-needed upgrades, he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just having to adjust our priorities and make this a priority,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Reitz said. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just not doing some major projects that we said we were going to do this year,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he added.  <\/p>\n<p>Due to the low level of funding for technology, Bales and Kevin Harvey, the technology specialist for Smith Middle School, told the board it falls on the schools to come up with the money necessary to keep up with technology demands. <\/p>\n<p>Because each school does its own fundraising through bake sales and grant writing, the amount of money each school receives differs, meaning that across the district there is what Bales calls a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hodgepodge of different technologies,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d causing each child to have a different experience. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is easy to find ways we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve fallen behind,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Harvey said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience between two classrooms or grade levels can be drastically different.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d  <\/p>\n<p>However, unless additionally money is allocated for technology upgrades, this inequality of experiences and resources across the district will not be able to be resolved. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I know that the budget is tight and in better economic circumstances this wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even be a debate,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bales said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all working to support the needs of our 21st-century learners.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>The school board will vote on the 2012-13 budget proposal on March 29.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At a public hearing last Thursday on the 2012-13 budget, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education heard from school technology specialists expressing concern that the money allocated for technology upgrades would not be enough to meet increasing demands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24620"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24641,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24620\/revisions\/24641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}