RUMFORD — Two dozen students have been identified as benefiting from an alternative education program at Mountain Valley Middle School, Principal Carrie Luce told Regional School Unit 10 directors Monday at Mountain Valley High School.

“We are tasked with educating all of the children of all of the people and that is an enormous task,” Luce said. “When we think about alternative ed we really want to address a range of factors such as academic struggles that students face, disengagement from the school or from their learning and individual preferences for learning,” she said.

The students identified as likely to benefit, because “school just isn’t working for them,” have high rates of absenteeism, and have missed 80 days of school this year, Luce said.

“They have social-emotional needs; their behavior can get in the way of their learning,” she said. “They are not engaging with their learning, and they have skill and knowledge gaps because they are away from school. They are missing lots of school. And all of this puts these kids at risk for high school dropout.”

The main objective would be to provide learning experiences tailored to students’ individual needs and could include adapting the curriculum and adjusting the length of the school day.

“If we wait until high school to provide them with (an alternative education program) then it’s too late for some of them,” Luce said.

Also reporting to the board, Director of Technology Brian Carrier said the department oversees 2,400 computerized devices for staff and students. The number includes 350 desktop classroom computers or office phones, 188 wireless access points, 21 network switches, 194 security cameras, and 107 programmable door locks, he said.

The district has iPads from 2017 for prekindergarten through second grade students and Mac Book Air laptops for grades 3 through 12.

“The younger grades are on 2019 models, and then our middle school currently is our newest machines, and grades 9 through 12 are on the 2020 devices,” Carrier said.

“As we move into the budget season, these are the machines that we’re looking at right now, our 2017 and 2019 devices,” which are getting into the four- to six-year age range, he said.

Some positives of recent years’ technology budgets, Carrier said, have been government funding from the coronavirus pandemic and the American Rescue Plan Act beginning in 2021, which allowed them to maintain updated devices at a 1-to-1 ratio for staff and students. The district has also been able to upgrade older hardware systems, such as phone systems, bells and cameras, and has not charged a laptop device use fee, he said.

Some downsides have been that since they stopped charging device use fees for laptops and iPads, they have less money to repair and maintain devices, he said.

Carrier also said the technology department includes three Level 1 technicians, who are support specialists working at multiple school buildings and in district offices. He said the district has two Level 2 technicians who offer “a little bit more advanced levels of support,” in data management and network administration.

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