Success Snapshot: Rural ESD Persists in Providing Technology and Support to its Schools

The Umatilla-Morrow Education Service District (UMESD) very deliberately sat down with a group of instructional technology leaders in the fall of 2006 and worked out a model for basic, functional, high-potential classroom integration meant to serve its districts.

In December 2006, Michael Lasher, Chief Operations Officer for the UMESD, approached Sen. David Nelson with two white papers that described the uses and benefits of data projectors and document cameras in a classroom setting. Sen. Nelson was so impressed that he sponsored Senate Bill 607, in early 2007. This legislation would have sponsored a state matching grant for districts that wished to place a data projector and document camera in every classroom in their schools. Unfortunately the legislation did not become law.

Undeterred, the administration at Umatilla-Morrow ESD gave its Information Technology department the discretionary funds to subsidize local school districts' purchase of data projectors. The goal was to place data projectors in each classroom, provide professional development for teachers on their uses, and to support the use of the projectors over a two-year period; IT was nearly overwhelmed by the positive response and the large number of orders for both data projectors and document cameras.

Ther are no high-tech firms across the street from any of the schools in Umatilla and Morrow Counties. That hasn't stopped the people here from persisting in finding a way to advance the teaching and learning process, nor has it dampened their pursuit of the technology and the methods to apply it that they see as key to the advancement of their students. "We have a great healthy start," Cheri Rhinhart, UMESD Information Technology Director acknowledged when contacted about Accelerate Oregon's vision. She responded enthusiastically when asked what an opportunity like Accelerate Oregon might mean to the school districts she serves, "Getting all of the technology in the hands of our teachers, with the professional development to support them, would be the ultimate solution."

In the first year of the Umatilla-Morrow ESD project all 12 districts were assisted in the installation of 344 data projectors and 173 document cameras in 511 classrooms. In July of 2008, the UMESD is expected to complete the project of outfitting every classroom in Umatilla and Morrow counties with data projectors and document cameras by subsidizing and coordinatiing another larger purchase on behalf of the schools.

UMESD's unique approach involves two professional teachers integrated with the Information Technology group, ensuring that the IT group is delivering solutions the teachers need and want, while providing all teachers with the professional development to use the technology in their classrooms. The UMESD's Information Technology team's joint plan to install and maintain the units, and to also train teachers, ensured the project's success.