With the one-to-one program being put into place for the 2016-2017 school year, questions have risen regarding planners and if they will be taken away because of this.
In the Seaman district, starting in first grade, every student receives a planner for a $5 fee.
Planners contain information such as dress code, the drug-testing policy, a map of the school, discipline points, rules, and almost anything else a student or parent could
possibly have a question about in regards to school.
If you pick a student at random, chances are they don’t fill out their schedule on a daily basis.
“I never use the actual planner part, ” Junior Braxton Huff says. “I use alternative ways to keep track, like reminders on my phone. I don’t think it’s a necessity because I only use my planner at school,”
When a student leaves the room during class, they are expected to fill out the ‘hall pass’ section in the back; the date, the time they left, and their destination. It also requires a teacher signature.
“I usually just use my planner for hall passes when needed. That’s not very often,” Huff says.
Starting the 2016/2017 school year, planners will now be on students laptops they receive will the one-to-one program. The planners will be easily-accessible through an application called iBooks.
“We feel like it’s a good fit to transfer to electronic,” say Mike Monaghan.
Planners will have everything the physical planners do, but now they can also have videos. For example, there will be a video over the dress code, so that students can see an example of what is expected to be worn when they are at school.
As for the hall passes in the planner, administration has been exploring options for them.
“We probably won’t see digital passes in the first year one-to-one is used, but we could work on getting there eventually,” says Monaghan.
Due to the phone policy at Seaman, a phone application isn’t a likely candidate for electronic hall passes. Apps like myHomework or Schooltraq have hall pass options for students.
Hall passes for the next few school years will most likely be ‘old school’; students will have to ask the teacher for a hall pass, and then they will have to sign out of the room to travel elsewhere.
“We have good teachers,” says Monaghan. “And our new technology can’t replace them.”