Background
The San Juan Unified School District (SJUSD) is recognized statewide and nationally as an innovative, creative, and responsive educational institution. Located in the Sacramento metropolitan area, the district is the ninth largest school district in the state. Five thousand employees serve 54,000 students in preschool, elementary, middle, high school, and adult education. The district's 88 schools are located throughout a 75-square-mile area in the northeastern portion of Sacramento County. In 1994 two of the district's high schools and one middle school were recognized as California Distinguished Schools.
Prior to 1990, the district had a Sperry mainframe, 20 lease lines with multiplexers, 60 personal computers, and no network. The district used computer technology primarily for administrative applications. New state reporting requirements and a growing demand for information management motivated the district to turn to online networking solutions. Business and student administration were the first major applications of the network.
Today the district has developed a wide area network that connects all schools and district offices, providing access to network information and resources, including the Internet. Over 900 computers, both administrative and instructional, are connected to the network, with 1,600 instructional computers to be added to the network by fall of 1995. The network supports student information management for K-12 students, a financial system, electronic mail for the district's employees, and over 300 data bases for special programs.
In 1987 San Juan began to develop instructional local area networks at schools. These networks were intended to provide computer-assisted instructional support to enhance student learning. In 1991 the Board of Education adopted a computer competency graduation requirement. Beginning in 1995 all graduating seniors must pass a hands-on minimum competency test in word processing, data base, and spreadsheet. Many middle school and elementary school students have already completed the competency requirement.
Today, computers and computer tools are available to all K-12 students. There are over 4,000 classroom computers and 78 instructional local area networks. Computers are used to support curriculum and as intelligent tutors. Computer labs at schools are actively used before school, during the school day, during the lunch period, and after school. The district is investigating extending computer lab hours. Many schools host family computer nights. The district's newest elementary school has a technology focus. Some teachers are using computers as primary teaching/learning tools. A local support organization has donated a large CD-ROM library for schools. Many San Juan schools have received grants to expand and enhance their technology programs.
The district's technology program and use of the Internet is demonstrated at public displays of the district's school programs. Much of the district's public information has been placed on the district's Internet servers. This information is now available to people moving to the area or considering jobs in the district, or to other school districts interested in information about our district.
Goals
The district's adopted mission statement says, "The San Juan Unified School District will provide an environment that enables all learners to reach their individual potentials, including the literacy, knowledge, and skills necessary to compete in a global economy, and to exercise the rights and humanitarian responsibilities of citizenship." Technology is an important part of accomplishing that mission. Further, the Board of Education has adopted belief statements which include the following, "We believe the role of technology is to provide tools that empower learners to be active participants and creative thinkers."
With the primary goal of enhancing student learning, in September of 1994 the San Juan Board of Education directed staff to make sure computer labs at every district school had access to the Internet by July of 1995. This mandate will make available an additional 1,600 instructional computers with direct Internet access.
Future expansion will focus on campuswide networks with computers in every classroom. The connectivity of the district network will allow for student collaboration among schools worldwide. Experiments are in process using CUSeeMe technology to develop multimedia presentations among sites.
Technical Solution
The districtwide internetwork is based on TCP/IP. Initially (1989), the district's Information Systems (IS) staff chose a bridged network design with 10BaseT local area network wiring, T-1, and 56KB ADN lines with remote bridges for wide area network connections. At the time, this design provided a cost effective solution. However, it quickly reached its expansion limits, and the upgrading process began.
SJUSD IS staff has recently completed a reconfiguration of the network, moving to the use of routers for flexibility and increased management of the network. All active devices on the network have Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) capabilities to permit centralized monitoring from a Unix workstation in the district office. SJUSD IS staff would strongly recommend the use of routers by any district involved in a network design process. SJUSD is planning to use the features of routed networks to separate the academic networking from the administrative networking at each campus. Wide area links are also being upgraded to full T-1 lines to address the increased traffic requirements of instructional computing. San Juan has created a specification for campus networks that includes a fiber optic backbone and 10BaseT connections to each computer using category 5 UTP wire. Where possible, to minimize labor costs, district rewiring projects have involved simultaneous wiring for telephone, security, computer, TV cable, and fire alarm.
Since 1992 several school sites have been networked from the district to the Internet. Teachers and librarians are using a variety of Internet educational and professional support resources, including electronic mail. To maximize use of the Internet, schools and teachers are using Web browsers (Netscape, Mosaic), Gopher, Email (Eudora, Acorn), Fetch, FTP and Telnet. The district also manages World Wide Web, and Gopher servers.
Funding
The district supports technology through the General Fund, the Building Technology Fund, and grant funds.
Training and Support
For some time the district has been working with business leaders in the community to ensure that schools provide essential training to help students be successful as they move into the world of work. Businesses have stressed the critical importance of incorporating technology in basic education programs. The district has established a K-12 committee to develop a plan for instructional use of technology. Many of the focused academy programs at district high schools incorporate specific technology skills.
On an ongoing basis, the district provides courses to help teachers update their skills in the use of technology. The district hosts an annual technology conference for district teachers that includes workshops and demonstrations of technology available for instructional or classroom management or presentation use.
Management and support of technology used for instruction is provided by one district educational technologist. Each school has two or more technology representatives who regularly attend training. These "tech reps" are site level experts. They install new computers, diagnose minor technical problems, install or reinstall software, assist with routine maintenance. There are also technology mentors who have completed a special training program. These trainers provide technology competency courses for other teachers, as well as support instructional use of technology. The district is now providing a 45-hour Trainer of Trainers Internet class. To expand Internet training in the future, the district hopes to provide classes for parents and community members.
Currently, the district is preparing a notice to parents about the Internet and rules for its use by students. In addition, the district will place signs in computer labs to remind students of computer use rules and network etiquette.
As the use of computer networks for academic and administrative functions grows, the ability of technical support staff to support these functions properly is becoming increasingly difficult. The technical support staff will have to increase as the San Juan network grows and requirements for resources and support increase. SJUSD staff are researching the successful distributed support methods implemented by local colleges and universities.
Dan O'Halloran
San Juan Unified School District
dano@sanjuan.edu
Ted Perry
San Juan Unified School District
tperry@sanjuan.edu
