The Snowflake Unified School District Governing Board approved a new curriculum last week for the alternative school created last year at Snowflake High School to serve both high school and junior high school students.
“This year has been a year of both success and growing pains,” said Director Shon Flake, noting that they have worked their way through issues, made adjustments and changes as necessary in order to maximize the things that work, and found solutions for the things that didn’t.
When the alternative school opened the district had an agreement in place with the Mesa School District to use its online curriculum, the Mesa District Learning Program (MDLP), which helped facilitate an easy start up of the new program.
Flake said that this program has some shortcomings. “It is OK; it meets all the standards, the basics, but no bells and whistles” said Flake. “It’s not very exciting.”
Flake talked to other alternative school supervisors about their programs and asked for recommendations. The best reports were on Edgenuity, a software program that is nationwide and has a strong presence in Arizona. There were four programs recommended, so Flake contacted representatives from each of those companies and logged into their systems to try out their lessons. He also had some of the students check them out.
Flake said that all the programs have good aspects, but the one they felt is the greatest improvement is Edgenuity, which offer instructional videos that include the teachers teaching and presenting the concepts. They also have features that allow students to get credit for things that they already know, which will be especially helpful for credit recovery. There are also ways to customize courses, which will be useful.
Edgenuity charges $300 per year for a concurrent user license. The district will purchase 18 licenses to cover the 18 computers in the alternative school lab, but Flake noted that students can log on from anywhere and at any time as long as there are not more than 18 on at a time.
MDLP charge $150 per course, so if a student takes two courses, it will be the same price for Edgenuity as MDLP.
“Many students wouldn’t be in school if we didn’t have this,” said Flake, noting that the Edgenuity program seems to be a little more engaging for students.
The board approved adoption of the Edgenuity online curriculum.
In other business, the board approved Nimble Storage for district network storage, disaster recovery and backup. The main appliance they have at this time will be at end of life in 2016. The current system would cost the district $7,931 each year for the next five years, equal to $39,655, while the Nimble system will include the support costs as well as installation and configuration for five years for $59,398.
“We will not have the funds a year or two from now…unless something changes at the state level,” said Superintendent Hollis Merrell. “This purchase would wipe out the entire budget for a year.
“That’s the impact the governor’s budget cuts will have to that system,” he said. “We have that money right now.”
The board also approved use of the school vehicles for out of state travel for the wrestlers to attend a camp in Oklahoma this summer.
