TOWAMENCIN – Last night the North Penn School District held its second annual Innovation Celebration in North Penn High School’s cafeteria. Members from both the school district and community gathered in a sort of science fair set up to present ideas on how to better the school district. Due to the current budget issues a majority of the presentations were centered on methods for the school to either produce or save money.
Dr. Toni Butz, a 16-year English teacher and now the Manager of Curriculum for the North Penn School District, pretested to community members the idea of switching from the conventional paper books to E-books.
“Just as we are currently providing you a hard-back text book we will provide you the E-book or digital content,” said Butz. The plan would either call for the district to provide devices with content preloaded for students to use, or students would have to supply their own devices and then the school would apply the E-book software to them. While it costs the district $85 for a hardback textbook, an E-book costs $35 There is no subscription cost to the e-textbook cost. An e-textbook is like a kindle book or PDF file book; it is a one time cost. There is also another type of digital textbook called an I-textbook , available through Apple i-Tunes. That I-Textbook is a cost of $12.00 per year for each student.”
While every year money is given to departments to order new books, if North Penn was to make the switch into the digital age money would be put toward updating software and hardware, the cost of which is going down in price so the district would save further money.
One of the few groups that incorporated involvement with students presenting was the North Penn’s Energy Troopers, North Penn High School’s chapter of the nationwide group, Direct Energy. The district actually has eight different chapters representing eight different schools. Direct Energy’s ultimate goal revolves around the idea of changing how schools use energy; however, the group is very flexible on how schools achieve this key objective. The Energy Troopers’ main focus is how North Penn uses its lighting. They stress that minor actions can save a lot of energy. Research has shown that the gymnasium uses up far more light than it actually needs to. Furthermore, they are finding many of the lights in North Penn classrooms are not up with current technology.
“Were finding a ton of the bulbs are old. They are T12s. T12s were used in the original building in the 70’s. There are very few T8s. The only newest blubs, the T5s, are in the special education room,” said junior and group member Mat Nejako. Though the actual change over to newer blubs would not save the school much when comparing bulb prices, the overall change in energy output would create huge energy savings.
One of the larger groups looking for ways to bring more revenue, other than government funding, is the North Penn Alternative Revenue Committee. The group has been looking into allowing advertising into the district as a way to generate profit, and they hopes to place advertisements in schools, outdoor areas, and buses, which promote a positive message.
“We would advertise things like health, wellbeing, and reading. All these are positive messages that we’re trying to reach out to the students on an everyday basis; now we could possibly get paid for it,” said committee chair Josie Charnock. The group also wants to create an Alumni Association, in order to create an extensive network in the community around North Penn full of members who care for the wellbeing of the district. In a recent texting vote done by the committee 55% of those who responded stated they would be willing.
Even every student’s favorite period, lunch, was also represented in the cafeteria sharing ideas on how to better overall satisfaction. Last year the nutrition’s committee created a series of incentives that were not all completed and will be carried over into this year’s plan. One of last year’s goals that will be carried into next year is the push for healthier food throughout the district’s cafeterias. It is no wonder why students have noticed an increase in the amount of fruit and vegetable made available for purchase this year.
When asked how students felt about the changes, Coordinator of School Nutrition, Pam Gallagher said, “What the federal government is hoping is you make the initial changes and then kids get used to it.”
A brand new innovation the cafeterias are hoping to make going into the next year is getting a new points of sale system. Getting in the end of the line after a long wait can become tedious because of the outdated software still used in the cafeterias. However, with this new point of sales system students themselves would be able to type in their own number or swipe their ID, which would increase line speeds. Also there would be digital displays throughout the lines displaying lunch menus and nutritional values.
The overall feeling taken from the members of the district administration and the community was extremely positive. “It is in its second year and I think it’s already made a huge impact,” School Board member Carolyn Murphy said.
Superintendent Dr. Curt Dietrich thought the turnout of presenters was tremendous. “The alternative revenue idea is one that is huge for us, the idea of putting advertising in the buildings. We are really seriously pursuing that now,” said Dietrich. The other major idea that caught his eye was the E-book proposal. “That takes some time because we have to buy the equipment, but once we have that we can a lot of money because the E-book is a lot less expensive than a traditional book,” said Dietrich.
This year there has been a lot of debate on how to balance the budget due to the current economic issues facing the district. One of the major ways discussed to cut the budget is cutting back classes with low student enrollment; however, the Innovation Celebration showed school and community members that there are individuals with great ideas that could save the school money for years to come.