| State: Texas | Number of Students: 11,508 |
| School Type: Public School District | Free and Reduced Lunch: 87.7% |
| Grade Level: PK-12 | English Language Learners: 35.1% |
State of Technology
Innovative Infrastructure: Del Valle ISD has about 600 iPads as well as a growing number of chromebooks with about2,000 as of summer 2016. The district has made carts of devices available for all students. Thousands of virtual machineshave also been dispersed throughout the district’s learning spaces, libraries and campuses. This shift was spurred in2012, when the district’s enrollment grew exponentially and it was struggling to keep infrastructure up-to-date. The ITDepartment researched virtual desktops as an alternative to the traditional PCs and chose Samsung SynMaster CloudDisplays. Students could login on any Cloud display and access their authorized applications and data files.
Coding Across All Grades: Del Valle has been experimenting with coding across the grade levels, and specifically tryingto find connections between coding and robots to find ways that allow young students to access coding. During the2015-2016 school year, the district piloted Bee-Bots and Pro-Bots in grades three and four. The instructional technologyteam gave participating teachers the tools and asked them to design some lessons so the district could figure outwhether there was a need and a desire for these kinds of tools. Teachers involved in the pilot developed a bank oflessons across content areas. The pilot was so successful that the district is now deploying 6 Bee-Bots and 8 Pro-Bots toall eight elementary schools. Del Valle also has three Makey Makey kits with a variety of accessories that are available forcheck-out. In June 2016, Del Valle ISD won a CS Mini-Grant at the WeTeach_CS Summit in Austin. The grant will be usedto expand the after school Robotics and Coding program for grades three through five, which the district piloted priorusing Sphero robots.
Middle Schoolers Level Up: During the 2015-2016 school year, the district offered high school students the opportunityto take a course on the Fundamentals of Computer Science and one middle school piloted the course with eighth graders. For the 2016-2017 school year, it is expanding the codingprogram, giving students at all three middle schools the chanceto receive high school credit in computer science. As of August2016, there are almost 300 eighth and ninth graders signed up forFundamentals of Computer Science. Del Valle has partnered withStudioWeb for curriculum in Java, HTML, CSS and PHP.
Learning Commons: In 2015, Del Valle ISD transformed its libraryinto a Learning Commons, a space dedicated to technology, onlineeducation, tutoring, collaboration and content creation. To integratethe Learning Commons, the instructional technology team formed adiverse group of 12 teachers spanning all content areas in grades 9-12to implement a Blended Learning Instructional Pilot (BLIP) duringthe 2015-2016 school year. The district provided training for theseteachers on blended learning instructional practices and gave each ofthe teachers a class set of Chromebooks for the pilot.
Tech Needs & Requirements
Del Valle ISD is looking for tools that can strengthen and supportreading instruction.