The school district policy of teachers and more recently, students being able to bring their own electronic devices to school to aid in student learning had its second reading by Assistant Superintendent of Schools Andy Corey before the school board. The policy must be read and accepted as having been read three times.
At the Tuesday, Oct. 8 meeting, Corey explained that the Bring Your Own Device or BYOD policy reflects the board’s establishment of bringing technology into the curriculum as part of its 21st century goals.
Corey said the policy sets the stage for online and hybrid courses as well as increasing access to tutoring videos and to district YouTube channels that will be brought online in the near future. He added that it has been vetted by legal counsel.
In a related matter, board member John Robinson asked Corey to elaborate on “problems you’re having with tablets in the high school.”
“I’m not aware of any discipline problems at the high school,” Corey responded.
Robinson said his understanding was that students were causing alarms to go off in classes, bypassing security protections and “things like that.”
Londonderry High School Principal Jason Parent said he had not heard of anything like that at the school. Robinson said he had received his information from students.
Anissa Cote, Student Council representative to the school board, said she knew that some students had the capability to do what Robinson mentioned, but to her knowledge no one had actually committed those acts.
Chairman Nancy Hendricks asked Robinson if he’d heard of security breaches.
“It’s more mischief,” Robinson said.
Corey said the only iPads that would be able to produce such mischief would be those used by 66 environmental science students. “There are no other iPads directly assigned to other students and they don’t necessarily want to risk losing the iPads for the remainder of the school year because of a poor choice,” Corey said.
Parent, Corey and Information Technology Director Shawn Coe all said they would look into the matter.