Burbank Unified sets technology upgrade goal

Burbank school officials agreed earlier this month to spend $639,500 to upgrade the technology at four elementary schools as part of an extended effort to give campuses new equipment with Measure S bond funds.

Edison, Roosevelt, Jefferson and Emerson elementary schools will each receive new cabling, projectors, mounts and speakers for voice-amplification systems that teachers can use to help make sure they’re heard in the classroom.

Document cameras will also give teachers the ability to project 3-D objects.

Each of the components installed in the rooms will make up the “21st Century Classroom” that Burbank school officials have strove to provide students ever since voters passed the $110-million Measure S bond in 2013.

Their goal is to give 881 classrooms upgrades by September 2016 at a cost of about $5 million, which school officials agreed upon near the end of the 2013-14 school year.

The improvements that will be done at Edison, Roosevelt, Jefferson and Emerson are expected to be complete by the end of January, said Charles Poovakan, director of information technology for Burbank Unified.

The upgrades at Edison will cost about $158,950, while they’ll come in at roughly $173,800 at Roosevelt. At Jefferson, improvements will tally about 183,700, while they’ll cost approximately $187,000 at Emerson.

Meanwhile, Burbank school officials are also preparing to draft a new technology master plan to replace the current one, which was created to address technology implementation between 2012 and 2015.

During that time, officials have worked to install Wi-Fi across the district, purchased hundreds of HP Chromebook laptops and replaced hundreds of older desktop computers with newer models.

Updating the campuses with more computers became a major focus during the last school year, leading up to the new state standardized exams that students took on computers for the first time this past spring.

Last year, the school board also approved $1.5 million to upgrade its data center, effectively giving the district greater flexibility to accommodate the district’s expanding computer network.

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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan