Barrington gets to work on new technology plan.(News)

Byline: Michelle Martin Daily Herald Staff Writer

The technology plan for Barrington area schools might have been bogged down for the past several years, but it will leap forward this spring, Barrington Unit District 220's administrators said.

A committee of staff, parents, community members and students will meet today in District 220 to continue developing a technology framework plan that the district can submit to the state by April 16, said technology coordinator Robert Luby.

The plan will cover the next three to five years, but no one should expect it to detail exactly what students will be doing on what kind of computers in 2004, Luby said.

Instead, the plan will give the district a direction to move in and set up a structure to help it get there.

"The plan says, here's the structure," Luby said. "The structure is going to do the work."

The district must complete its plan in the next several weeks to meet the deadline for a $300,000 technology grant from the state. The plan also must take the form prescribed by the state, Luby said.

When board member Thomas Tonniges heard that the only community representatives on the committee board were board member Thomas Krettler and one other parent, he asked whether the district should take more advantage of the expertise of some Barrington area residents.

"It seems to me you can't have community ideas unless you have lots of community members here," Tonniges said.

But having too much input could overwhelm the committee as it works to write a plan that will meet the state requirements, Luby said.

"To get 50 experts together to work on this plan, that's too much information all at once," Luby said. "This plan can include going out and pursuing those resources."

One of the first steps the committee is taking is collecting data about existing technology in the schools through a survey available on the Internet and on the internal districtwide network.