TEACHER ACCESS

SUMMARY

Our current High Speed Wide Area Network connects all of our eight district schools including one high school, one middle school, and six elementary schools. Teachers have access to computer workstations in each building. Currently all of our high school classrooms have at least one computer workstation connected to our network with access to all network resources. All of our middle school classrooms also have computer access in each classroom. Our elementary schools are fully connected with computer workstations in each of our grade 4 through 6 classrooms. Media Centers in all school are fully equipped with computer labs connected to the network. Each network user is given a personal directory on one of our network servers to save and secure valuable work. Network users have the ability to retrieve their data from any workstation on the district Wide Area Network.

The high school is equipped with a dedicated ITV room that is available for all in the district to use as programming becomes available. Each school is equipped with a satellite communications dish that is terminated in the media centers and distributed to the classrooms where most rooms have access to TV and VCR setups. The high school is also equipped with a TV production studio. The studio is connected to the community access channel where programming being developed by our TV science instructional program can be broadcast to the school community in real time or tape delay.

Teachers all have access to high speed Internet in the classrooms and throughout the schools. Each teacher has access to a personal e-mail account that can be accessed either internally on our network or anywhere in the world via web access.

All students and staff have access to on-site professional technical service. They also have access to four professional technology facilitators to assist them with training issues throughout the school day as well as during after school in-service programs. Our district offers a full compliment of technology training programs to assist the staff in improving both technology literacy and technology integration skills. Off campus training opportunities have been arranged with local colleges and universities including William Paterson University, Montclair State University and Passaic County Community College. Other off campus training opportunities include NJ ELITE and programming offered by the Passaic County Educational Technology Training Center. The district also supports the West Milford Community School, which offers on-going adult education programs for members of our school community in all areas of technology.

Distance Learning opportunities, offered either on-line via the Internet or through Interactive TV continue to compliment our store of staff development opportunities.

PROGRAM EVALUATION PROCESS

PROCEDURE FOR THE LONG-RANGE EVALUATION OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AND SERVICES

RELEVANT RESEARCH

NJ ELITE - (Exemplary Leadership Institutes for Technology in Education for Superintendents and Principals)

NJ ELITE was established to enhance the technology leadership skills of school superintendents, principals, and other educational administrators throughout the state.

NJ ELITE is a partnership among the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association (NJPSA), the New Jersey Association of School Administrators (NJASA), and the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE). Support is provided by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's State Leadership Development Fund.

NJ ELITE currently offers quality training at 12 locations across the state.

Since March 2001 over 800 of New Jersey's educational leaders have taken advantage of NJ ELITE's quality institutes and seminars. In its second year, NJ ELITE will expand its services dramatically to help administrators meet the growing demands and promise of technology in their schools.

The Technology Planning Committee and the Superintendent of School’s are proud to announce that 100% of our building principals participated in the NJ ELITE program during its first year. They also completed the T.A.G.L.I.T. survey as part of their training. This research tool was key to the development of our current Technology Plan Revision. For more information about the NJ ELITE program please visit the NJ ELITE web site.

(http://www.njelite.org/index.html)

T.A.G.L.I.T. - (Taking a Good Look At Instructional Technology)

Taking A Good Look at Instructional Technology or TAGLIT is a suite of web-based technology planning tools designed to help principals and other school leaders gather, analyze, and report information about how technology is used for teaching and learning in their schools. For information regarding the benefits of participation in T.A.G.L.I.T. please visit the web site.

(http://www.njelite.org/taglit/index.html)

T.A.G.L.I.T. - (Taking a Good Look At Instructional Technology)

INTRODUCTION

Taking a Good Look at Instructional Technology (TAGLIT) is a set of assessment tools designed to provide school personnel with information about the current status of instructional technology use at their school. TAGLIT includes Leaders, Teachers and Students questionnaires.

TAGLIT data are presented in five sections: Plan, Teachers, Students, Community, and Stuff.

WHO "DOES" TAGLIT

* Students (Grades 3 — 12) - no student identification is submitted when they log on Student input takes about 15 minutes.

NEEDS ASSESSMENT

For the purpose of developing a "HIGH QUALITY" Professional Development program for the term of this technology plan revision the technology planning committee will be focusing on the survey results from our teaching staff.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Our district technology planning committee, after review of the T.A.G.L.I.T. surveys has developed a list of skills that need to be addressed during the next three years. The skills, as defined in T.A.G.L.I.T. were broken down into three categories. The three categories are High School, Middle School, and Elementary School. In an effort to customize the staff development program to better meet the needs of the target groups, three staff development programs were developed. The planning committee will continue to use the evaluation criteria as established in T.A.G.L.I.T. to establish Skills that need to be addressed, Indicators for Success, Benchmarks, and Measures. For the purpose of developing On-going High Quality staff development opportunities the planning committee chose to address all skills that fell below 2.0 on the T.A.G.L.I.T. survey as a beginning benchmark. It is our stated goal that all of our professional staff will be able to school a minimum of 3.0 on the next T.A.G.L.I.T survey when administered in June of 2007. On-going High Quality staff development opportunities were developed in an effort to meet our stated goal of 3.0.

T.A.G.L.I.T. = KEY

T.A.G.L.I.T. - SURVEY RESULTS - ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

T.A.G.L.I.T. = KEY

T.A.G.L.I.T. - SURVEY RESULTS - MIDDLE SCHOOL

T.A.G.L.I.T. - SURVEY RESULTS - HIGH SCHOOL

ADMINISTRATIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

West Milford Public Schools administrators have been involved in the NJ Elite Program since it began. Currently our Superintendent, School Business Administrator, Building Principals, and Director of Technology have completed the Core Program and have attended a culminating seminar. It is the intention of West Milford Public Schools to encourage all members of the administrative team to participate in the NJ Elite Program.

As our network grows and our on-line resources replace traditional administrative functions throughout our district, high quality, on-going staff development opportunities will be offered to all administrators. We are implementing several on-line resources during the next several years. As these applications are installed on our network affected administrators and support staff will be provided with the necessary training in timely fashion.

Some of the administrative software solutions that will require high quality, on-going training include:

PROFICIENCY SUMMARY

TAGLIT

The aspects of an instructional technology program that a school develops over time are scored on a 4-point scale. The lower the score, the less developed is that aspect of the program. The four points refer to the following stages of development:

NEEDS AND BARRIERS

West Milford Township Public Schools acknowledges the need for high quality, on-going planned staff development opportunities and makes every effort to provide adequate programming for all professional staff. West Milford provides an extensive staff development program through its own in-service academy. Program offerings are published in the Fall and Spring of each year and are developed in concert with the district Professional Development Committee. West Milford Adult/Community School offers a comprehensive program of studies to the community. A program of studies is published in the Fall and Spring of each year.

The Board of Education and Central Administration have policies in place that encourage participation in high quality, on-going professional development programs off campus. All professional staff are encouraged to participate in a variety of activities including but not limited to NJ Elite, Passaic County Educational Technology Training Center, and William Paterson University, etc.

West Milford Township Public Schools is always looking to overcome barriers to the delivery of its staff development opportunities to its professionals. Currently we are fortunate to have a minimum of barriers in our program. In an effort to improve our on-going effort we are working on developing a plan to increase the amount of available time during the school day for staff to participate in all training opportunities as new needs arise. Some barriers to this include budgetary constraints and labor contracts. However, we are working to overcome these barriers with some creative scheduling of our professional staff and efficient use of our technology facilitators as well as continued improvement in our professional day activities.

PLANNED TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

STAFF DEVELOPMENT NEEDS - HIGH SCHOOL