Eighth graders
will be using
online textbooks.
PHILLIPS – If you want an answer from SAD 58 Superintendent Quenten Clark on what’s new in his district this year, plan to have a lot of time on your hands.
There is a lot going on in the district, which educates just under 1,000 students at schools in Phillips, Strong, Eustis, Kingfield and Salem. The district also serves townships and unorganized territories all the way up to the Canadian border.
The most noticeable changes will be seen in Phillips, where voters overwhelmingly opted to close the antiquated primary school last winter and permanently move around 60 K-2 students up the road a short jaunt to the Phillips Middle School, which will soon be renamed the Phillips Elementary School.
The K-2 students will be housed in portable classrooms for now, while an $862,000 addition is built. The groundbreaking is expected later this month. The contract, which was awarded to R & R Construction of Lewiston recently, includes plans for an addition that will include a new library, three new classrooms and an art room.
That project is slated for completion by next spring, and students will move in at the latest in the fall of 2004.
Related to that addition is a $72,000 technology grant for the school, which will be used to buy new computers, update the server and do some behind-the-scenes upgrading to the network wiring. Those technology improvements will be made in conjunction with the building the addition.
Sometime this week, the Phillips School will be tapping into the town’s water supply, a move prompted after the school’s well water was found to have high radon levels.
The changeover costs $83,000, 75 percent of which will be paid for by the state and the remaining 25 percent that was loaned to the district at 0 percent interest over the next five years (around $4,000 each year). “It’s a safer, more reliable water supply,” Clark noted.
Another change in Phillips will impact only eighth-graders this year, but could eventually wave over the whole district. Phillips eighth-graders will be the only ones in SAD 58 to not be lugging books around this school year as all of their textbooks will be online.
“Costwise, it looks pretty good,” Clark said. “We are excited about it. It’s going to be an interesting project.”
The e-textbooks will be easier for students to use, cheaper and will have up-to-date information. If the experimental test in Phillips goes well, the rest of the district will soon follow suit, the superintendent predicted.
“Technology is finally coming to our schools. The whole electronic transition will be very big this year, and very exciting.”
Another e-move will be linking the district up to Power School, a Web-based student information system from Apple that provides real-time information to parents, administrators, teachers and students over the Internet.
With Power School, parents will be able to log onto the ‘Net and check to see that their child passed in their homework, the district will be able to monitor attendance records and students will be able to keep an eye on their grades. And more.
Elementary students arriving for school Tuesday in Kingfield will also notice a few differences. Last year, the school opened a new wing with additional classrooms, and this summer, underwent a massive revamping of the central office area.
The secretary’s office was moved to the entrance of the school so the parking lot and front door can be watched at all times. Clark called it a major safety move. “The issues have changed,” he admitted. “Twenty years ago, you’d worry about kids getting off the buses safely, now you have to worry about terrorism.”
The renovations also freed up some office space, which was converted to a conference room, a special education classroom and a technology room which will house the school’s server.
Clark attributes all the changes in his district to a savvy team of grant writers who pull in funding to make the changes economically possible. “They’ve been busy going after the money,” he explained.
“The teachers up here are pretty upbeat,” Clarks said of his staff. “They are genuinely involved and excited about what’s going on up here. Everybody is kind of ready for the school year to start. Kind of,” he added. “They get a little nervous. No one really sleeps the night before school starts.”
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