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While the impact of the pandemic affected everyone, our least-advantaged
2020 YEAR IN REVIEW
IT DIVISION
students and families were particularly hard hit. From a technology
perspective, the lack of available internet access was of particular concern.
In the IT Division, we reached out to many of our partners and assisted in
a collaborative effort with Performance Accountability and others to help
provide free or low-cost internet access to as many students as possible.
(Full article here)

As the pandemic continued to surge through the Spring, it became apparent
that we would not be returning to in-person instruction for the remainder of
the school year. After finishing the year with all students still learning remotely
and a much smaller 2020 Summer School presence, we pivoted over the
summer to planning for the start of school in August, understanding that we
would need to be prepared for multiple possibilities: in-school instruction,
remote learning or a hybrid of the two. One primary focus was to order,
configure and deploy an additional 80,000+ Chromebooks to replace broken
and outdated ones, as well as ensuring every student would have access
to a computer. We are officially a 1:1 District since the last batch of devices
was delivered in February! While these are not the circumstances we foresaw
or preferred to achieve this important milestone, the result is certainly one we
can all be proud of.

As the new school year approached, we still were unsure what model would
be used for the opening of schools and planned for all contingencies. After
much deliberation and sometimes confusing and conflicting guidance from
the state, we opened with remote learning for all students on August 31st.
With the benefit of hindsight and lessons learned from our Spring roll-out
of devices, we were much better prepared to handle the new distribution
and exchange of Chromebooks. As the additional laptops came in over
the Summer and Fall, we prioritized delivery to ensure a fair and equitable
distribution for all students and schools.

Only a few weeks after starting the year entirely in remote learning mode, the
District received a mandate to provide in-school instruction to any student
who requested it. The ensuing hybrid model of some students at home and
some in-class presented new challenges for IT as a team, ones met to the
best of our abilities.

While the adjustments to support distance learning and remote work
absorbed much Division focus and bandwidth, we, nevertheless, continued
to improve and implement and support the majority of other initiatives we had
planned for the year. This is a real tribute to the skills, experience, flexibility
and dedication of staff across the Division. The move to remote work for
most staff required some ingenuity and adjustment, it was made without
missing a beat. We maintained our commitment to support the school and
administrators at an exceptionally high level.

As we headed into a much-needed holiday break, 2021 loomed with the
same uncertainty as its predecessor. The District’s decision to require
parents to choose either in-school or remote learning for the remainder of
the school year helped to remove some of the uncertainty for all involved.
We ended the year tired and a little beleaguered, but comfortable in the
knowledge that we had done everything in our power to support students,
schools and administrators as well as we could. I’d like to share a brief
overview of the past from our various departments’ perspective so we can
all appreciate and celebrate the accomplishments.

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