Laptops discussed by SAD 70 board

    HODGDON, Maine — In an effort to better control what students are doing with school computers, some laptops are getting shut down in the evening thanks to efforts of SAD 70 administrators.
According to Mill Pond School Principal Loreen Wiley, letters were sent to parents at the end of December to inform them that school was able to install a program on the student’s laptop that would shut down their child’s computer at a certain time.
    “There was not much response from the parents,” said Tracy Rockwell, a school board member who serves on the technology committee.
The technology committee made the initial recommendation of leaving the decision up to the parents as to whether the auto-shutoff program would be installed.
Wiley said she sent out 72 letters to parents in December and to date, 25 were returned. Only 10 of those 25 requested that the program be installed on their child’s laptop.
“Some of the teachers are also starting a new policy that if a student’s work is not done, the laptop is not going home,” Wiley said. “The question becomes, ‘why are you taking a laptop home if your work is not being done?’”
Wiley said the goal is to make sure the school’s laptops are being used for their intended purposes of education, not recreation.
The school board granted a leave of absence request from an education technician during Monday night’s meeting, but not without considerable discussion. Nancy Ellis, a library ed tech in the school district, requested time off the week of Feb.14-18 — a week prior to February vacation — to visit with family in California.
“Nancy is an employee who has missed very little, if any, time over the years,” McDaniel said.
Originally, Ellis suggested she could work the week of February vacation in the school’s library to compensate for her missed time, therefore she would not lose a week’s worth of pay.
Some board members expressed concerns in setting a precedent in allowing such a move.
“My concern is the precedence,” board chairman Estela Lane said. “We have had people before that have asked for days off before or after a vacation. While this is not an extension request, it’s a replacement request and we do need to bring that out [for discussion.]”
As an ed tech, there is no union contract to be considered, McDaniel pointed out, but some board members were still wary that other teachers would see this as an opportunity to request similar action.
The board unanimously agreed to grant Ellis the time off, albeit on an unpaid basis since a substitute would need to be hired to replace her while she was away.
In other agenda items, the school board:
• Granted permission to Ron Murray to take students to France for a field trip; and
• Accepted Principal Clark Rafford’s recommendation on the expulsion of a Hodgdon High School student. The move came after the board spent nearly 1.5 hours in executive session discussing the matter with the student’s family.
The next regular meeting of the SAD 70 school board is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 14 at 7 p.m.