Waller ISD is a semi-rural district sitting northwest of Houston. We serve just under 9,000 students in five elementaries, two junior high schools, and one high school. Our student population is 49% Hispanic / Latino. These Spanish-speaking learners have a big impact on our campuses. A Texas Tribune demographics report states that our district has 31% enrollment in Bilingual and ESL programs, and they report that our population is 68% economically disadvantaged. (Waller ISD | Texas Public Schools | The Texas Tribune, n.d.)
Waller ISD is one of the largest school districts in total square miles of land mass in the Greater Houston area, encompassing 328 square miles in Waller and northwest Harris counties. Waller ISD is located on Hwy 290, approximately 40 miles west of downtown Houston, in a semi-rural agricultural region that is rapidly expanding in residential and commercial development. The population in Waller ISD is approximately 30,000 residents.
(About WISD / District Overview, n.d.)
(About WISD / District Overview, n.d.)
Our community is largely agricultural, but there is a lot of development on the horizon. There are several students from my campus without internet access at home. When we shut down for Covid, we had some buses that became mobile hotspots. They would park in the school parking lot and parents would park their cars in the lot next to the bus so kids could do their schoolwork.
Waller ISD campuses are all 1:1 technology. At Fields Store Elementary, PK and Kindergarten students all have iPads. First through fifth grades all have Chromebooks. These devices travel between school and home all year for most students. They use Clever to access single sign-on for several classroom applications. We also utilize Canvas Classrooms to reach students digitally.
Classrooms at FSE are all equipped with Smartboards and document cameras. Wireless internet is available and mostly sufficient. On regular school days, I see little disruption in my internet connection. There are times, however, when the system gets overloaded. For example, when a whole grade level is doing online testing, the rest of campus is asked to reduce our internet consumption to avoid a crash in the system. While our classrooms are well-equipped, our library is not equipped with a Smartboard. Students have their own devices which eliminates the need for a computer lab, but there is room for growth in supportive tech for the library.
Our district utilizes G Suite tools for employees. This technology system has been efficient and effective for me as a classroom teacher. Each school year we have been provided with training opportunities from our technology department. These include G suite, Canvas, Jabber, Skyward, iPads, Canva, SeeSaw, and a host of other topics. There is also web support for parents. They can look here, https://sites.google.com/wallerisd.net/wisdparenthowtos/home, for a range of technology help topics. We also have an employee technology help-desk through Eduphoria. I have found our district technologists to be very responsive to these inquiries.
The following list can be found on the Waller ISD website. It is not up to date, as we now serve almost 9,000 students. But it does illustrate the general technology framework that we employ.
Overall, I find our district technology plan to be more than adequate. Things move at a fast pace in the digital world, and Waller ISD has made a conscious effort to stay in stride with the tech needs of our teachers and learners.
District Technology Facts
- Serve all 7,400+ students
- Approx. 8,000+ computers used daily districtwide
- 78 Servers
- 32 Terabytes of storage used daily
- Over 300 Terabytes of video storage
- 18 Technology staff members
- 1:1 iPads for Pre-K and Kindergarten, 1:1 Chromebooks for grades 1-12
- Students and staff provided with G Suite tools to connect, create, access, and control data flow
- LMS - Canvas
- 10 Gigabit pipe to the Internet
- WISD has wireless access on all campuses
- Skyward Student and Finance System
- Classrooms equipped with document cameras and Interactive Displays
- Maintain 600+ security cameras districtwide
- IP Telephone system
- Maintains a visitor control software system, V-Soft, which is installed on each campus to track visitors, student late arrival / early departure, and staff sign in. The system also checks visitor IDs against national sex offender databases.
- Numerous computer-based instructional tools including Canvas, Eduphoria, ISTATION, Edgenuity, StemScopes, BrainPOP, APEX and more
(Technology / Technology, n.d.)
Overall, I find our district technology plan to be more than adequate. Things move at a fast pace in the digital world, and Waller ISD has made a conscious effort to stay in stride with the tech needs of our teachers and learners.
References
About WISD / District Overview. (n.d.). Waller ISD. Retrieved September 6, 2023, from https://www.wallerisd.net/domain/499
Technology / Technology. (n.d.). Waller ISD. Retrieved September 6, 2023, from https://www.wallerisd.net/Domain/35
Waller ISD | Texas Public Schools | The Texas Tribune. (n.d.). Texas Public Schools Explorer. Retrieved September 6, 2023, from https://schools.texastribune.org/districts/waller-isd/
*This writing created as an assignment for SHSU LSSL 5391.
Hello Cindi! I saw a few similarities between your district and mine such as the 1:1 ratio of student to technology device and the utilization of G suite. In having the students all have their own device is a great achievement as it allows students to learn in a variety of ways. Students are able to share their best form of learning which can be done through the different online programs and online classrooms. It was surprising to hear that the majority of your students do not have internet access at home. This could take a toll on education as it prevents them from furthering their learning outside of school. Overall, it seems that your district does a well developed technology plan in place leading students and staff towards success.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great description of the technology available to students, parents, and teachers! You seem to feel that it's adequate. It sure seems like it is!
ReplyDeleteHi Cindi,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear that you have problems with internet consumption "to avoid a crashin the system." Your statement motivated me to research the issue on Google. I found the following article. I wonder if any of the causes mentioned in it might apply to your school. Best wishes on the semester, and thank you for your post! https://www.sourceonetechnology.com/wireless-access-in-schools/
"crashing" not "crashin" sorry :)
DeleteI find it surprising and interesting that even though many students don’t have internet access, that it’s still a 1:1 district. I hadn’t heard of students completing work in cars using mobile hot spots. That sounds challenging for both parents and students! I’m grateful that we’re back in school so students and parents have the resources they need to be successful!
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed for you to get a smartboard in your library! We finally got one in ours in the last 2 weeks, and we’re all loving it! It took many years of requests from the district but it finally happened (it’s an old refurbished one, but better than nothing).
I’m glad they’ve mostly kept up with the times, and hope they continue to do so for your sake as an educator and especially for the sake of the students!
I really liked the facts about your district. It helped put things in perspective about how they are trying to meet the needs of students. Our districts sound very similar in size and available technology and tech personnel.
ReplyDelete