The 1998 Missouri School District Computing Census

Executive Summary

Back to 1998 Census

PLANNING:

Ninety-three percent of the districts have a technology plan. Ninety-one percent of these plans have been written since 1997 and 50% of them cover a five year period.
Seventy percent of the school buildings report having a technology plan. Sixty-four percent of the school building plans are part of the district plan.
Ninety-two percent of the districts include technology as a component of their Comprehensive School Improvement Plan.
DESE has approved 71% of the district technology plans, which is required for participation in the e-rate program. (The nationwide Universal Service Fund (E-rate) is being supported through an assessment to all providers of telecommunication services. The funding is available for telecommunication services provided after January 1, 1998, through June 30, 1999 to all schools and libraries that apply, on a first-come, first-served basis.)
Over 70% of the plans cover the following items; hardware/peripherals, school computer software, internal connections, staff training, curriculum integration, maintenance of equipment, and external connections. Only half of the plans cover the school’s electrical wiring.
Who is making the decisions about technology acquisition and use within a district? The largest group of individuals reported were consultants – 86%. Followed by Teachers, Library Media Specialist, Chief Financial Officer, School Board Members, Curriculum Director and Director of Management Information. Of the school personnel the principals were least likely to be involved with technology acquisitions and use – 11%.
Twenty-two percent of the districts partner with a business or higher education institution to support technology.

TRAINING:

Curriculum integration was ranked the highest priority for technical assistance with educational technology – 65%. This was followed by professional development – 57% and system networking/wiring – 47%.
For educational technology training priorities the item ranked the highest was Internet applications-61%, followed by instructional delivery with education technology–60%, basic computer operations—57%, and curriculum development with education technology.
Seven percent of the districts require teachers to demonstrate technology skills for employment or continued employment within the district.
Those districts requiring demonstration of technology skills by their teachers, evaluate the teachers by monitoring professional development hours, hands-on-evaluations, and transcripts.
On average about half of the school personnel are at an intermediate skill level in the use of technology.

Faculty/Staff	Beginner %	Intermediate %	Advanced %
Administrators	31%	54%	13%
Principal(s)	35%	51%	11%
Teachers	40%	48%	11%
Technology Support Staff	7%	24%	54%

On average three days a year are scheduled for professional development activities where teachers can learn or upgrade their technology and computer skills.
Compared to the 1997-98 school year 60% of schools plan to increase the number of professional development activities for technology and computer skills.

HARDWARE:

Technical maintenance and support of the district hardware is reported to be the responsibility of the district staff – 70%. Over 60% of the districts reported using outside vendors for technology hardware maintenance.

Administrative Offices:

Ninety-seven percent of the districts report having at least one computer in the Administrative Building/District Office.
Of the 8,227 computers found in Administrator’s offices 77% of them are Personal Computers (PCs).
Of these PCs 64% are running Windows 95 or later and 76% of them are multimedia equipped (CDROM & speakers).

Instructional Classrooms:

There are over 134,000 computers in Missouri public schools. This is a ratio of 6 students per computer.
Sixty-four percent of the total computers are PCs. Of these PCs 70% are running Windows 95 or later.
Of these computers about 44% of them are multimedia equipped (CDROM & speakers).
An estimated 13,500 computers will be purchased during the 1998-99 school year.

INTERNET CONNECTIVITY DISTANCE LEARNING:

Eighty-six percent of the districts use MOREnet as their Internet Service Provider.
About 30% of the districts report using a dial-up link to the Internet. These districts are dialing into MOREnet – 13% a district sponsored modem pool – 9% or using a commercial provider – 9%.
Nine percent of the districts have participated in a NetDay to help get their schools and classrooms wired to the Internet. On average, 8 people volunteered to help wire schools and 9 classrooms were wired.
About one fifth of the districts use some type of Internet filtering software
On average, 68% of districts report having parents’ signatures before students can access the Internet and 61% of students have signed Acceptable Use Policies (AUP).

Administrative Offices:

Ninety-three percent of the district Administrative Offices have access to the Internet.
Sixty-eight percent of districts have a direct link to the Internet. Seventy-five percent of these offices have 56Kb or higher connectivity – T1-50% -- 56Kb-24%.
Of the 8,227 computers found in the District Administrative Offices about 4,063 (50%) are connected to the Internet.
Eighty percent of the districts have at least one computer connected to the Internet in their District Administrative Offices.
Seventy-seven percent of the District Administrative Offices have a local area network (LAN). Fifty-eight percent of these LANs are using NOVELL as their operating system, followed by Windows NT – 15%.
Five percent of the District Administrative Offices report being equipped for two-way interactive video/audio communications.

Instructional Classrooms:

	Total Computers	Internet Capable	Internet Connected
Number	134,122	103,474	63,833
Students Per Computer	6.7	8.6	14.0
1998 adjusted numbers (See page 27 for explanation).

Ninety percent of Missouri’s 2200 school buildings are connected to the Internet.
Sixty-eight percent of the schools have a direct link to the Internet. Sixty percent of these schools have a 56Kb or higher connectivity – T1-43% -- 56Kb-18%.
Of the 47,500 classrooms in Missouri public schools 26,800 of them are wired for the Internet – 56%.
Of the 134,000 computers in Missouri classrooms 103,500 are Internet-capable – 77%.
Of the 103,500 Internet-capable computers 63,800 of them are connected to the Internet – 62%.
Missouri has a student per Internet-connected computer ratio of 14 to 1. These are computers found in computer labs, libraries, and instructional rooms (core classrooms).
The student per Internet-connected computer ratio varies by type of school. High Schools have a lower ratio than Jr. High/Middle Schools and Elementary Schools – 6:1, 10:1 and 15:1 respectively. (See table below)
Eighty percent of schools currently have a LAN. NOVELL is the operating system for 58% of the LANs.
About half of the schools are connected to another building within their district through a wide area network (WAN).

Students Per Internet Connected Computer by School Type, Enrollment,

Percent of Students Receiving Free and Reduced Lunch and Geography.

	Enrollment	Internet Connected Computers	Students Per Computer
MISSOURI	893,454	63,772	14.0

School Type
High School	264,824	41,939	6.3
Jr. High/Middle	171,577	17,561	9.8
Elementary	446,305	30,210	14.8
Enrollment
Less than 250	97,256	13,105	7.4
251 – 500	306,578	27,394	11.2
501 or More	487,442	48,519	10.0
Free&Reduced Lunch
Less Than 25%	487,729	53,351	9.1
25% - 50%	272,115	26,648	10.2
50% or More	133,591	14,377	9.3
Geography
Large City	114,151	13,633	8.4
Mid-Size City	83,969	7,135	11.8
Urban Fringe of Large City	299,693	23,909	12.5
Urban Fringe of Mid-Size City	28,023	5,026	5.6
Large Town	13,228	996	13.3
Small Town	145,881	14,804	9.8
Rural Metro	63,572	6,129	10.4
Rural Non-Metro	144,918	22,744	6.4
1998 adjusted numbers (See page 27 for explanation)

TECHNOLOGY FUNDING:

Ninety-six percent of Missouri School Districts use grant money for technology funds. Other sources of money for technology are: District line item budget – 72%, State funds – 70%, and Federal funds – 33%.
Eighty-three percent of the districts applied for the e-rate program. On average districts estimated that their discount would be 42%.
Computer and peripheral hardware are the items that have the largest budget on average compared to other technologically related purchases such as, instructional software for classrooms, professional development for educational technology, Internet charges, or distance learning (Cable TV, Satellite etc.).
The amount of money allocated for Professional Development focusing on educational technology has been steadily increasing from 1996-97 to amounts budgeted for the 1998-99 school year -- $4,500 – $7,700 (on average per district).

TECHNOLOGY USAGE:

Percent of principal(s), teachers and students using the following computer applications and functions.

Computer Applications	Principal(s) (%)	Teachers (%)	Students (%)
A. Educational Software	58%	71%	77%
B. E-Mail	84%	52%	18%
C. Web-Browsing (Net Surfing)	76%	52%	50%
D. Ebsco Host	32%	25%	27%
E. Encyclopedia	40%	43%	50%

Computer Functions	Principal(s) (%)	Teachers (%)	Students (%)
A. Computer Generated Presentations	41%	21%	28%
B. Writing Assignments (Reports)	87%	63%	59%
C. Research/Information Collection	75%	52%	53%
D. Lesson Plan Preparation	21%	41%	N/A
E. Spreadsheet/ databases (student records)	80%	39%	N/A
F. Keep track of student performance	72%	46%	N/A
G. Communicate with Parents	77%	47%	11%
H. Communicate with DESE staff	58%	13%	N/A

Faculty and Staff Use:

Sixteen percent of the districts have incorporated technology proficiency requirements for students to pass to the next level.
Seventy-seven percent of the districts have an Instructional Technology Coordinator or Library Media Specialist whose responsibilities include providing leadership and support for teachers in integrating technology into the curriculum. An additional seven percent state that an Instructional Technology Coordinator or Library Media Specialist is a position they plan to employee.
Of the Seventy-seven percent of staff whose responsibility it is to provide technology support for teachers, 41% of them are full time employees.

Student Use:

Students participating in classes originating from remote sites are primarily doing so via cable TV – 20%, followed by satellite – 15%, Interactive TV – 7% and desk top technologies – 6%.
Eighty percent of the districts require parents’ signatures before students can access the Internet.
About 81% of the districts have had some proportion of their students’ sign Internet Acceptable Use Policies (AUP). Only 10% of the districts report having all of their students’ signatures on an AUP.
On average, 61% of the students have signed an Internet AUP.

Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
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