Unit 4 - Technology Policies

 ·        Does your school district have an Internet Acceptable Use Policy?

o   Oldham-Ramona does have an Internet Acceptable Use Policy. During my first year there, the technology director and I went through and updated this policy. Every year we look it over and update the policy to match with our beliefs, school culture, and emerging technology. The policy contains guidelines for acceptable use and disciplinary action of those guidelines are not followed. It also contains definitions for understanding the policy.

·        Does your school district have an Internet Publishing Policy?

o   Currently, Oldham-Ramona does not have a policy on Internet Publishing. I looked through all my files and our policy handbook and could not find one. I also asked our technology coordinator with no luck. Creating an Internet Publishing policy is now on my two do list. I will probably start by finding examples of policies from other school. I will ask my tech director to do the same. With this information we can come up with a draft to submit to our superintendent. Our superintendent can then recommend changes, subtractions, and additions, before it is formally introduced to our school board.

·        Does your school district have a Distance Education Policy?

o   Plato stated, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Prior to Covid, Oldham-Ramona did not have a distance learning policy. We did have home school policies, but that is very different than distance learning. When the idea of distance learning came about, I set out to create a policy. This policy outlined our plans to educate the students, expectations on the parents, and many other guidelines to aid in a successful process. It is important to note that while the distance education was available to every family in the district, not every family would benefit from it. Before and after creating this policy, the superintendent had many conversations as to how this might look and what we were expecting from our teachers and the parents. I sat down and talked to each parent that expressed interest in distance education, many of whom I tried to dissuade due to the fact that their students would not be successful. For many parents, the perception of the distance education was incorrect. The program was not going to be easier, nor would they just be able to do it by themselves with little to no supervision. However, one family in our district is doing outstanding with it. Both the teachers and parents had a few growing pains, but it seems to be going much smoother now.

·        What does your district need to do to get these policies up-to-date?

o   The main thing we need in our district is time. Time to find out the policies we are missing and create them. We also need time to go through previous policies and update them. We also need someone to chair this process and keep everyone else on task. The superintendent, tech director, and myself where multiple hats and need to find a time each week or moth to sit down and discuss these policies.