OD Plans Participation in Statewide Development Network

Oregon-Davis School Board members (seated) Andrea McIntosh, Shirley Budka. (standing) Christopher Lawrence, Kurt Hayes, Lee Nagai
Oregon-Davis School Board members (seated) Andrea McIntosh, Shirley Budka. (standing) Christopher Lawrence, Kurt Hayes, Lee Nagai

The Oregon-Davis School Corporation is looking to provide instructional technology training to its staff.

Daniel Bundridge, a District Director of Improvement for the Indiana Department of Education, presented information to the OD school board, Monday night. It was learned that the school corporation has been invited to participate in a state development network with six other school corporations, providing training throughout the 2016/17 academic year.

Oregon-Davis Superintendent Jim Dermody says this they hope to walk away from the meetings knowing they’ve provided significant training to their teachers.

“One of the areas we’re going to be working on with the state, and the state is going to be afforded us a number of resources, is the use of instructional technology in the classroom in the actual classroom setting,” says Dermody.

The six schools participating in the learning network will meet four times each year and interact on the topics being considered for the year.

This is the second year the plan has been in effect, with Oregon-Davis joining for year two. Although the working group is still in its infancy, the Indiana Department of Education said Oregon-Davis fit the criteria to participate in the group.

Dermody says the school board had plenty of questions, Monday night.

“We felt that it was a really nice opportunity as did all the school corporations that were invited and chose to join,” says Dermody. “We feel we have a lot to offer from schools that are different from ours and we feel that we can learn from them as well so we’re excited about the opportunity.”

The school corporation hopes participation in the program will allow them to provide a high degree of training to their teaching staff.

The six participating school corporations fall into various income brackets, achievements, and geographic areas of the state.