Pressroom

 

Case Study: Marysville JUSD

Ambitious Program Bridges the Digital Divide

 

Marysville is not where you would expect to discover a technological revolution. Sitting amidst dusty peach and plum orchards, this small community 40 miles north of Sacramento is known for high unemployment and an agricultural economy supported by migrant workers. As with many rural communities, high school graduates often feel they have two choices - go away, or go nowhere.

 

The farmland is rich but the local schools are not. Nonetheless, two years ago the Marysville Joint Unified School District's (MJUSD) new superintendent, Marc Liebman, launched an ambitious program to bridge the digital divide. His vision was designed to bring technology into the classroom and ensure that students graduate with skills they need to guarantee them a place in the information economy.

 

The need for some kind of help was evident - approximately 85 percent of MJUSD students do not go to college. Liebman's goal is to expand their options and opportunities.

 

Liebman sought the help of Quest, a technology consulting and management firm with a long history of providing technology to California's K-12 community. Quest had already been working with MJUSD in an administrative capacity, and Liebman was pleased with their work. But now the company faced a daunting task. Liebman's and Quest's mutual goal was to make the school district so technologically advanced that students would have the opportunity to graduate high school and be immediately hired into high-paying technology jobs. The key to this success is to get as many of the students Cisco network and workstation A+ certified, which would lead to better jobs and greater opportunity. Basic computer applications like word processing and spreadsheets would no longer be foreign concepts or optional parts of the curriculum.

 

To accomplish this goal, the district needed to aggressively upgrade or replace all their old computer systems from the ground up. Quest provided a top-to-bottom solution by wiring the schools, providing multiple servers, delivering upgraded and intense learning software, and supplying all the necessary hardware components. Quest also acted as the liaison between the District and PC manufacturers with whom the District was trying to build partnerships.

 

"Quest has been the best service company I've ever worked with," Liebman said. "The reason they are fantastic is that I don't have to worry about them at all. Everything we need done is done, and whenever we need them, they are there. That frees our internal technology people to support our end users both administratively and educationally and to focus on the other components of their jobs."

 

Liebman sought out grants and funding to help with the enormous technological upgrades. With Quest's assistance and support, the District has been able to secure different types of funding to make the technology initiative possible. These sources have included getting Digital High School monies for all of the District's high schools (over $700K). Additionally, the District was able to take advantage of over $3 million in E-Rate funds, and negotiated a no-interest loan of over $2 million for the purchase of technology. This funding would be used to help Marysville's youngest students learn to read and to develop partnerships to leverage available resources in the most effective and efficient manner to maximize student learning and success.

 

"As a superintendent, I look at the students in my district and I wonder how to increase their opportunities to be more successful students and to ensure that they have career options when they graduate," Liebman said. "It should be obvious to everyone that the high-paying, high-demand jobs of the future will be within the technology field. This doesn't mean that I'm dissuading students from going to college, but I believe we must do all we can in public education to be sure that all students, including those from lower-income families, get the tools they need to succeed in all kinds of careers."

 

Liebman added, "We're fortunate to be moving forward to take advantage of the technology now available. That technology has completely altered the landscape of social structure and our students must be taught to take advantage of that technology if they are to be successful and productive adults in tomorrow's world. Our success as a school district will be based on our ability to give students the kinds of opportunities rarely offered to any student, much less those in the lower income brackets we often work with."

 

Facts About Marysville Joint Unified High School District's Technology Program

Number of Schools Wired: 22
Number of Students in Program: 9,600
Number of Computers for use: over 2,000
Number of Applications Taught: 12
Percentage of Students who have Technology Available at Home: approx. 30 percent
High School Graduation Rate: 84 percent

 

For Information About the Federal E-Rate Funding Program,

see www.sl.universalservice.org or www.edlinc.org

 

About Quest

Quest is a technology management company that has been serving Fortune 50-5000 and small and medium-sized corporations, state and local government, and educational institutions since 1982. The company offers clients a portfolio of professional services, managed services, telecommunications & transport, maintenance contract management, fiber-optics, wireless & structured cabling, and technical staffing, all backed by the most advanced technologies.

 

Contact Information

To order a hard copy of Quest's Press Kit of for further information, please contact Barbara_Klide@questsys.com