Disclaimer

This website was created during non-work hours using donated software, hardware and web hosting. It is intended for discussion, modification and eventual adoption by the Roseville Joint Union High School District (California). Until such process is completed, the opinions expressed on this website are the opinions of the author alone.

Roseville Connected Technology Education Program

Background

This project is being developed by the Roseville Joint Union High School District. The District serves students in the Roseville, Granite Bay and Antelope communities, as well as students who are interdistrict transfers from other areas. Upon enrolling, all families must provide proof of residence by virtue of a property deed, a signed rental contract or property-based bills (such as PG&E) in the family’s name. Invitations to apply will be sent to the families of students who are in foster care, are low-income or are homeless and live in the City of Roseville. The preceding information is available in the District’s student database. All applications will be checked for eligibility prior to being accepted.

Target Clientele

All of the district goals are important. Some are more pertitnent to English Learners than others. These are presented here. The full set of district goals can be downloaded below.

Project Summary

The primary objectives of this project are to (a) provide internet training for adults, and (b) to bring low-income families into productive contact with cyber space in order to (c) bridge the digital divide. (Data and elaboration are provided below.) This project will accomplish these objectives by training parents on computer and internet usage, to acquire computers, to obtain low-cost internet connectivity for their homes and then place the computers in the homes. This project parallels a similar project in Pixley, California. Parents of students in the Roseville Joint Union High School District will be invited to apply for a place in the program. Invitations to apply will be sent to target clientele families residing in the City of Roseville, based on our student information database. If too many applications are received, they will be prioritized by the number of children high school age and younger in the family, in order to maximize the impact of the program. Based on the experiences of Pixley Connect, we will adopt an attitude and practices in line promoting responsibility with limited resources. Instead of providing everything free, we will establish requirements and nominal fees for the training, equipment and services. One parent must participate in all class meetings. (Reasonable make-ups will be organized) Families of graduates will be given internet-capable reconditioned computers with software and will sign up for Surewest home Internet service. Our project will subsidize the internet service to discount the price to $10 per month. The family will have the responsibility of paying the monthly discounted bill.

One of the early disappointments of the Pixley project was participants who would reserve a place in the project, then drop out part way through. In order to counter this issue, Pixley Connect charged $1 per session. We will do similarly, but charge the entire amount of $30 up front, so the family has made the investment and it is incumbent upon them to assure regular attendance.

Background

The Roseville Joint Union High School District, as a modern business practice and as progressive educational practices, has shifted some functions away from being paper-based to electronically-based. The practice makes sense from a management and financial perspective. It also makes sense from an educational perspective for a number of reasons, including being able to communicate more efficiently with the client families. This shift, however, is leaving some families behind. For example, although end of term report cards are still mailed home, other progress reports are now sent via email. The decision to change from a mass mailing of progress reports via U.S. Postal Service to mass emailing of progress reports will save substantial amounts of postage money and staff time. It will provide the RJUHSD client families with more timely information about their students’ progress. There are numerous examples of these types of shifts. There are families in the RJUHSD service area, however, who do not have internet access in their homes. By and large, these families tend to low-income. The academic struggles facing children of low-income households are well researched and documented. Despite extra money allocated by the government to the schools on their behalf, the underachievement of the this socio-economic subgroup of our school population continue to persist. Any decision, was well-intentioned and reasonable, to place more emphasis on internet connectedness, is a decision that leaves families who are less connected more disconnected from their children’s schooling. The disparity between those with access to computer technology and those who do not is often referred to as “the digital divide.” The disparity in the ability to use the technology tends to parallel the disparity in access, making the digital divide deeper than merely access issues.

Primary Goals

The primary goals will be: a) To train a cadre of parents on computer and internet usage. To measure the success of the training, the project will a. Require parents to attend all sessions of a 30-hour computer training course. This will be documented through attendance records. b) To expand the district’s capacity for grant-funded programs. This will be funded by the District as in-kind staff time and will be documented by a log of activities.

The project is unique to the area. We are aware of community access to computers and the internet through the Roseville City Library system, at The Gathering Inn and as part of various after-school programs. Our District maintains a formal relationship with the City of Roseville and library professionals in our district maintain relationships with the City Library system. Our District does not have a formal relationship with the Gathering Inn as we provide different services to distinct clientele. Training will be conducted by the Roseville Adult School and will complement their current computer literacy course offerings.

The training component of this program is going to be conducted by the Roseville Adult School. Attendance will generate funding from the State of California. The Roseville Joint Union High School District will continue to provide administrative support through existing staff. The District will also provide staff time for expanding the funding base for this program. The district will expand its capacity for seeking grant funding (a) by training staff either through the Sierra College certificate program, or (b) the grant writing training offered by __________________. This program is informed by “Pixley Connect,” a similar program in Pixley, California funded by a grant from AT&T. Pixley Connect is seeking to expand in a northerly direction. We intend to be “the location of choice” by developing our expertise and capacity for administering such programs. The training Pixley Connect is conducted through Tulare Adult School, a educational facility similar to our Roseville Adult School. We are using their expertise to inform our recipient selection process, our choice of curriculum materials and other administrative functions. There are natural connections between our District, the proposed Roseville Connected program and other entities in Roseville. These include (a) The Roseville City School District, (b) the City of Roseville Library program, (c) SureWest Communications, (d) Hewlett Packard, (e) NEC, and (d) Intel. As we develop our capacity to plan and implement this type of project, we will also work on building working relationships with these entities in order to capitalize on our shared interests and separate capabilities.

Based on the Pixley Connect model, we will charge a $30 seat fee for the program training. The staff of Pixley Connect recommends charging a token amount of money as a way of assuring a stable cadre of participants. Their experience is that many participants dropped out of the mandatory training when they offered it completely free. This resulted in under-utilized capacity in the computer training courses. (It is often referred to as “teaching empty seats.”) The Pixley Connect instructor recommended charging $1 per person per session. We have decided that it would be better to charge an up-front “seat fee” in order to make increase the value of a seat to the participant and thus increase the degree of commitment to training. As we are targeting a low-income population, we anticipate that our proposed seat fee may be too much for a family to commit, especially up-front. We will evaluate applications on a case-by-case basis for waiving the fee.

The academic under-achievement of certain demographic subgroups is well-researched and documented and is referred to as “the achievement gap.” As the school district relies more heavily on Internet-based means for communicating with parents, those who do not have Internet access in the home will be disadvantaged. This relative disadvantage is referred to as “the digital divide.” Teachers are increasingly using the Internet for assignments and for communicating progress to the students and their families. Those without Internet in the home are thus at a relative disadvantage in the educational program. Common sense is supported by the research in stating that the digital divide affects low-income families to a greater degree than families with stronger incomes. This proposal seeks to bring as many families as possible into cyber space in order to erase this particular disadvantage and to allow these students to fully partake in the school District’s core mission: To educate students.

For more information about Roseville Connected, please contact:

Ted Herr
Project Director
therr@rjuhsd.us
916-786-0793 x1364

Kellie Morehouse
Project Manager
kmorehouse@rjuhsd.us
916-782-3753 x3318