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Educational Design & Technology

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Learning Technology Grant Program Overview: Syracuse City School District

Award Years: 2018-2021

“My Goals, My Pace, Flexible Time, Flexible Space:

Syracuse City Schools Personalize Learning”

The Syracuse City School District (SCSD) is a high-need Focus District that provides comprehensive educational programming to 19,543 K-12 students and 1,749 pre-kindergarten students of diverse racial, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. The composition of the SCSD student body is diverse: 50% are African-American; 22% are white; 13% are Hispanic/Latino; 8% are Asian or Pacific Islander; 6% are multi-racial; and 1% are American Indian. Students with disabilities comprise 20% of the student body; 18% of the students are English language learners; and 82% are economically disadvantaged. The District has the 4th highest child poverty rate among 684 districts in all of New York State.

The Syracuse City School District has prioritized the district-wide implementation of Personalized Learning (PL) as a means to increase student engagement and transform instructional practices to better meet the unique and diverse needs of our students. All schools are at a different phase in their Personalized Learning implementation and facing different challenges. We will design and deliver the support and professional development individual schools need, when they need it, and how they need it (e.g. job-embedded, online, blended). The SCSD will be responsive to the changing needs of schools and provide personalized support to each school to further their growth towards our Personalized Learning vision. That vision is a model that incorporates goal-setting, varied pacing, flexible usage of classroom time and flexible usage of classroom space - My Goals, My Pace, Flexible Time, Flexible Space.

Through the Learning Technology Grant program, we will be addressing the following areas, which target the needs of the entire K-12 student population as well as the entire SCSD instructional and administrative staff. These areas of focus will also address the needs of the independent and religious schools located within the city of Syracuse.

The SCSD will:

  • Revise and strengthen the current instructional technology plan, which will be critical in ensuring that all students graduate digitally literate with technology skills that will serve in them in college and beyond
  • Develop and deliver comprehensive professional development in educational/learning technology integration into classroom instruction for SCSD teachers and administrators, and for the independent and religious schools located in the city of Syracuse
  • Develop rigorous and engaging online credit recovery courses, for students that require options other than the traditional classroom instruction that takes place at school during the day
  • Engage stakeholders in the design of ePortfolios that will document and follow the progress of every SCSD student starting in kindergarten through their completion of high school.

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