Schools
District 219 Adopts Netbooks, Donates Calculators
Twister-struck Oklahoma town gets calculators as laptops replace them in cost-saving initiative.
The adoption of new technology in is not only saving money for the district, it’s making a difference for other schools too.
At their recent May meeting, school board members unanimously agreed to donate 53 Texas Instruments calculators to a high school in Tushka, a town in the southeastern Oklahoma that was hit by a tornado in April.
The twister spared the school's gymnasium, offices and computer lab, which were all on one side of the street. But it destroyed all the classrooms located across the street, said David Wartowksi, the math department chairman at Niles North High School in Skokie.
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The Oklahoma students are finishing the school year in mobile classroom trailers, but their school's sets of graphing calculators are all gone because of the tornado.
District 219 no longer needs the calculators because the specific geometry class that used them is no longer offered. Also better math software is offered on netbook laptops that all freshmen and sophomores will be using next fall, Wartowski said.
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“Many of our students no longer need certain calculators that ran them over $100 apiece,” said the district superintendent, Nanciann Gatta. “The software is available on their netbooks.”
The district handed out the computers as part of a high-tech initiative started this school year. The laptops belong to the students for the duration of their high school years and they can keep the machine upon graduation. However, if a student damage or lose his, he must pay for a replacement.
While only freshmen and sophomores will have netbooks next year, teachers at all levels are using textbooks less frequently as primary source materials since many options are available free on the Internet, Gatta said.
That’s one reason the cost of new textbooks for next year is down to about $66,000, from more than $200,000 a year earlier, Gatta said.
An emphasis on green, energy efficient technology that garnered an Energy Star award for Niles West High School also saves the district money, Gatta said, noting the district often gets rebates of tens of thousands of dollars from ComEd because the utility is actually buying power from the high schools that comprise District 219.
Niles West is one of 17 high schools in the state to receive an Energy Star rating.
