Superintendent says digital switch good for community

HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) - Enrollment is up for Huntsville City Schools and the district can already see success in implementing digital learning.

On Wednesday, Huntsville City Schools Superintendent Dr. Casey Warydynski spoke to members of the North Alabama Community Foundation on ideas he has for the future.

He pointed to the already successful digital switch for the district that's leaving textbooks behind.

He told the group he wants to extend that reach and boost distance learning to allow teachers to interact with students via internet for extra help.

Wardynski's feeling is that learning shouldn't stop when students walkout of the classroom.

"We really need to rethink the way we do business and help our teachers be more productive, more effective. To take that school day and take it beyond the brick and mortar of a school into the evening or a weekend and make it more engaging," he said.

The digital way of doing things needs a lot of technical support.

At the technical support hub, there are people staring at computer monitors ready to troubleshoot any technical problems that may come with keeping thousands of students learning.

The district basically crunched three years of work into six months to build the infrastructure, bandwidth, WiFi, everything the system needs to maintain 23,000 devices, laptops and iPads.

This technical support hub has people watching minute by minute, data tracking usage and making sure the system is working properly.

It's a good sign when a school is in green on their monitors.

The district already hit a milestone on Wednesday by hitting peak usage at 10,000 users on the system at once.

"We're monitoring the wireless network, how many people are on the network; we're monitoring performance across the board with the sole purpose of identifying issues and resolving those issues before it has an impact on the teachers and students themselves," said Jim Griffith with Teklinks.

The 4th graders at Goldsmith Schiffman Elementary are leading the district right now for this digital transition.

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