April 11, 2019 at 4:30 PM - Bradley County Board of Education Regular Meeting

Mr. Weathers recognized and thanked Mr. Thom Crye, Bradley County Commissioner and Chairman of the Education Committee, for attending  the meeting.  Nancy Casson recognized past employees that recently passed away.  Ms. Alice Rogers, a former teacher at Oak Grove Elem School and Mr. Jim Brown, a former teacher at Ocoee Middle School. 

Scott Webb, Technology Director, gave the Board an update on Technology.   Online testing is ready to go as far as Bradley County is concerned.  Fall testing went well, connectivity has been tested, and he feels like Bradley County is ready for spring testing but he is not sure what will happen at the state level.  Technology is about to upgrade from 1 gibabyte from school to school to 10 gigabytes and from 2 gigb to 5 gb with our same provider (ENA) but at a reduced cost.  3)  Last January a survey went out to teachers and   monitor students in real time.  Impergo.  This program works with Synergy (our Student Information System) to help teachers and students be grouped for monitoring.  A few teachers across the district are beta testing the program now.  Mr. Webb ask two teachers to talk to the Board about this program and how they see it being used.    Grade 3 at Waterville told the Board that she loves the program.  She can monitor what every student is working on from her desktop.  She can block or push out websites.  She can instant message them or they can her to ask questions in a private conversation.  Mr.  from Walker Valley, told the Board about his experiences with the program.  At a high school level, it helps to control what is going on in the classroom.  He can block gaming sites so the student's can't access them while they are suppose to be working on a project on their computer.  He can see everything from is desktop.  Mr. ... can also message his students if they are in another class on campus and have their computer open.  "Hey, don't forget to bring you book to class today."  It is like big brother, Mr. Webb told the Board.  It can help us monitor the system devices.  We can see the sites everyone accesses, what they print, if they have searched for particular words - we can see anything that is done on a device in our network.  It does not monitor outside of our network. 

Ms. Beaty stated that the Board at one time had a commitment to put ipads in every student hands.  She asked Mr. Webb were Bradley County Schools is on that commitment.  By the end of the summer, there will 3,600 chromebooks that are under two years old in the system and about 1,400 upgradable ipads Mr. Webb told her.  He told her that is a good start but how do we refresh these.  That may be where the Board's commitment comes in, Mrs. Beaty said.  Ms. Beaty also ask about the possibility of individuals donating money that will only be used for technology or safety.  Dr. Cash and Mr. Webb both said they have been working on a plan for that.  They just need to get a complete plan together to get it started. 

The Board will purchase and deliver cakes to the schools for Teacher Appreciation day (May 7th), along with freebies from the community. 

Dr. Cash also told the Board that cakes, certificates, and freebies are being provided for Oak Grove Elementary and Walker Valley High Schools which are Reward Schools. 

Chairman Weathers ask Mr. Page to give the Board an update on the PIE center.  Mr. Page told them that he was waiting on some numbers.  1) The numbers for a dark shell.  2) How to utilize the 2.3 million   3) GOAL sold.

The Chairman also ask for an update on Lake Forest Middle School.