The New York State Smart Schools Bond Act IT Investment Plan: The Ketchum-Grande School

May 5, 2017

Please take the time to read our School’s plan to better prepare our students for higher education and careers through the use of technology.

The New York State Smart Schools Bond Act IT Investment Plan: The Ketchum-Grande School

The SMART SCHOOLS BOND Act, approved in 2014-2015 is designed to “finance improved educational technology and infrastructure to improve learning and opportunity for students throughout the State.” The Ketchum-Grande School’s SMART SCHOOL”S INVESTMENT PLAN takes into account the following priorities:

  1. The plan is forward looking and seeks to:
    1. Prepare students for school and careers in the future by using technologies existent in their public schools as well as in the workforce
    2. Is manageable both financially and technologically
    3. Looks to where we want to be in 3 to 5 years as opposed to just replacing our older technology with updated models
  2. The plan must meet and exceed CIPA guidelines.
  3. The plan must be easily implemented
  4. The plan must provide training for students, faculty and staff, alike as needed.
  5. The plan is scheduled for a September 2017 roll out

Our current setup:

School is outfitted with numerous desktop and laptop workstations that are managed by our server and Active Directory (AD). Students logging onto AD are authenticated by our aging Barracuda Web Filter that provides web filtering based on content filters and custom filters based on CIPA guidelines and student needs (i.e. Burnt Hills/Ballston Lake High School students need greater access than KG students). There is also a password protected, “guest network” for visiting school administrators. This network has no web filtering.

Besides AD, our server also functions as a document server, storing student and faculty documents, as needed.

2017 Smart Schools Investment Plan

The 2017 Smart Schools Investment Plan for The Ketchum-Grande School will emulate what many schools are currently investing in and provide cutting edge technology to our students.

  1. 1:1 Chromebook Implementation – Each student will be issued a school managed Chromebook
  2. Re-configure current hardware to accommodate new Chromebook implementation
  3. Expansion of our already in-use G Suite for Education to include students. G Suite for Education, formerly Google Apps for Education, is a totally free service that includes Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Classroom and more. (currently only faculty and administrators are part of the G Suite application)
  4. Development of Google Classroom as a teaching tool for all teachers
  5. Migration of teacher documents to Google Docs
  6. Migration of server documents to Google Cloud
  7. Implementation of Cloud based web filtering, device monitoring and internet safety for Chromebooks on and off campus
  8. Early 2017-18 school year teacher in-service and individual training
  9. Early 2017-18 school year student training in G Suites for Education as well as Chromebook responsibility