Bringing New Technology to a School District of 7000 with Rachelle Butz of Monroe District Schools

What do you do when technology in your school district is outdated, inaccessible to all students and only in their hands a few times a month? In this digital age, it’s unacceptable. This was the exact problem Rachelle Butz, Executive Director of Digital Learning for Monroe District Schools in Washington, faced. On today’s podcast, she discusses the process of integrating brand new technology across a school district of 7,000 students, and how EdTech companies like Boxlight guided them to success.

Butz points out on the podcast that the foundation of every new policy is three major commitments: powerful instruction, equitable access and clear expectations. To reach these successfully & cost-effectively with new technologic implementations, Butz knew community involvement would be important, especially from the students.

Since their technology levy didn’t provide the money all at once, but instead over six years, there was the dilemma of certain schools getting new technology before others. The entire community voted for the levy and chipped in their hard-earned dollars, so how do you tell some of them that their children may never actually get to use the new technology? To solve this problem, Monroe School Districts partnered with several people to make the vision of doing it all at once a reality by leasing and taking advantage of volume pricing.

Butz explains how the district looked at several vendors over a few days, eventually narrowing it down to Troxell Solutions Devices, Mike Lee at Advanced Classroom Technologies and Carol Mazzuca at Boxlight. They asked the right questions and took the time to train the teachers in a way that teachers could feel comfortable with the technology and use it with confidence in the classroom.

Listen to the podcast to hear Butz break down the whole process and how the leasing option enabled Monroe School Districts to offer updated technology and learning experiences for all students at once. This was something that had never been done before in their district, and it enabled them to get even more than they ever originally thought possible.

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