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Pine-Richland boosts bandwith, other technology in schools

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Stephanie Strasburg | Tribune-Review
Trumpet player Jesse Hall, 14, of Gibsonia, takes a break to get a drink of water during Pine-Richland marching band camp at the high school stadium on Monday, Aug. 8, 2016.

If students in the Pine-Richland School District have questions as they prepare to return to classrooms next week, they know just where to look for answers.

For the first time, the district is providing students and their parents with an electronic “Back-to-School Guide,” which highlights information that families need to review prior to school, including the academic calendar, policies, annual notices, health notices and more.

The district calendar is filled with building, district and community events and can be customized for each student or family. The guide can be viewed at pinerichland.org/backtoschool.

It will provide information for the more than 4,500 students who are expected to begin a new school year on Aug. 24.

According to Rachel Hathhorn, director of communications for the district, parents were able to begin reviewing bus schedules and class assignments online as of Aug. 15. The information can be found at pinerichland.org/homeaccess.

The daily schedule remains unchanged for 2016-17, with the high school and middle schools beginning each day at 7:20 a.m. and dismissing students at 2:26 p.m. The school day at Eden Hall Upper Elementary will run from 8:25 to 3:05, and the elementary school will begin class at 9:15 and end at 3:45.

Over the summer the district completed several technology-related projects, including new cabling at all three primary schools and installation of new Wi-Fi at four elementary schools.

The technology department installed a district-wide Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, system and greatly increased Internet bandwidth to all schools, especially the high school and middle schools.

That added bandwidth could come in handy after the addition of seven new Chromebook carts and three repurposed carts for the district's elementary schools.

The board approved the purchase of the carts at a cost of $104,000 earlier this month. Each cart includes 30 Chromebook tablets.

To start the year, one cart will be located in each of the primary elementary schools, three will be at Eden Hall Upper Elementary and a “flex” cart will be used to support specific initiatives.

A test run of the Chromebooks was conducted over the second half of the last school year and, Hathhorn said, feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Also new this year, the district has been selected to be a member of the 2016-17 Carnegie Science Technology Engineering Arts & Mathematics (STEAM) Excellence Pathway Partnership.

Pine-Richland will send five to eight team members, including district and building administrators, teachers, community members and students, to the Carnegie Science Center in an effort to identify current strengths and opportunities related to STEAM education and to develop an action plan to further integrate STEAM education into the district curriculum.

This year, the district's food service department is offering a new app for families that coincides with the makeover of their payment site.

The new site is very similar to previous sites and can be viewed at www.schoolcafe.com/.

Parents can make payments, view purchase history, receive low balance alerts and view school menus.

School lunch prices for 2016-17 are $2 at elementary schools and $2.20 at secondary schools. School breakfast prices are $1 at the elementary and secondary schools.

Families qualifying for free/reduced price meals should visit www.pinerichland.org and click on “At Your Service” and then “Free/Reduced Meals.”

Vince Townley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-772-6364 of vtownley@tribweb.com.