Kuna school district right to request mobile computing devices in the first wave

Kuna school board member Carl Ericson said that before last week’s school board meeting he was planning on voting against requesting to be in the first wave of school districts statewide to receive mobile computing devices for students. But after further discussion, he changed his mind and was in favor of the plan.
I’m with Carl on this one. I, too, was thinking that it was only logical to wait and let the other school districts make the mistakes first, that it was wiser to wait until the technology got even better in two years. I didn’t buy the argument that if Kuna didn’t get computers first, students would leave the district for Meridian or Boise just so they could get computers.
But I think some compelling arguments were made during last week’s school board meeting.
“I’ve always believed that this is the right district to be in,” the school district’s technology director, Devan DeLashmutt, said at the meeting. “We are the right size. We have the right kind of staff, and we have the right kind of attitude to pull off an initiative like this.”
He also said Kuna very well may have the best infrastructure in the state to handle this kind of program. DeLashmutt said he plans to have a team of students help implement the program, which is still a year-and-a-half away. By using students to help implement the program, not only will Kuna be getting some free help, but Kuna students will be gaining some valuable hands-on experience that could help them get a job after school. And that’s one of the most appealing aspects for me. By involving students, Kuna will once again create another subset of students with specific interests and skills to help them go on after high school, just as Kuna has done with the STEM program and the health occupations program.