Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Technology Steering Committee Meeting, Monday, October 30, 2023

Date: Monday, October 30, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 19m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/880186818?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-21. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] Good evening, I'd like to call to order the meeting of the October 30th Technology Steering Committee. I have joined by my colleague, Ms. Sheridan, and Ms. Corbo is absent today. The next item on the agenda is the public comment, and it seems we have no public comment.

[00:00:16] So we'll move on to the approval of the minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes of the September 21st, 2023 meeting? - So moved. - I'll second that. All those in, any discussion? - Nope. - All those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand and say aye. - Aye. - So that'll pass unanimously at board members present.

[00:00:32] That'll move on to our action items. Today we have review, sorry, policy 8650, student technology acceptable and responsible use. And so I'll go ahead and make the motion to start this off. I move that the technology steering committee approves and accepts revised policy 8650, student technology acceptable slash responsible use and sends it to the full board as an information item.

[00:00:54] Is there a second? - Second. - Seconded by Ms. Sheridan. Any discussion? - I don't. - Okay, so I just have questions. I think there's feedback from the advisory committees. And I think there are good points that are brought up, but I think there's not things we should change because of that.

[00:01:15] But I think it's good to just kind of go over that. So one of the questions about cell phones, we had a discussion about that. That's a policy that we're working on outside of this and sort of tweaking with the schools. And I think SEAC had some interesting points.

[00:01:31] But again, I think the notes they made, I don't know if it's reasonable to just make the change. And so one of the concerns was that users have no right or expectation of privacy. And I think, again, that that's unreasonable because I think once you go onto a network like you, the network has access to all your data in a certain sense.

[00:01:52] And so it is not reasonable to expect any privacy. Is that correct? That's correct. We did discuss this with division counsel. And so he did provide some clarifying language. It doesn't change any of the structure, but just to make sure that it is separates out any FERPA concerns from network system or device monitoring.

[00:02:08] So we do have a little bit of language around that, if that's something that we want to include to help clarify that. But, yes, there is no using systems. We'll be monitoring and managing those. No, I think just keep it as it is, because that's a pretty standard term.

[00:02:24] And I think it's from a technical perspective, it's very true. And then I think the note about, well, they were complaining about the ability for us to block certain applications. And, again, that's Virginia code. So there's nothing we can do about that or should do about that.

[00:02:42] That's correct. That verbiage comes directly out of the state code update from July. And then their thing about the reviewing this every year, I believe, again, state code says you have to review this every two years or should review it every two years. So we're in line with what it is.

[00:02:59] So the fourth concern was definitely more interesting about the issue with FAPE where an IEP might specify a certain amount of technology. Do you see any concerns with this policy causing issues with students with IEPs?

[00:03:16] i don't specifically see any areas where this would restrict an iep or access to those technologies we do work with teachers to make sure that appropriate supports are written per se technologies we're supporting or actively engaged with versus being very specific to a device type or a thing or a device to kind of leave it a little more broad to give us flexibility but we are i did ask division council there's nothing necessarily negative about that suggestion that they would have concerns about and if that's something the committee would want to consider as a clarifying point um staff would be okay with that uh yeah i think that that would be something good to add so

[00:03:54] if the committee's all right with that i think we just go ahead and add the recommendation that at line 14 we add accept as required by special education laws and regulations to include section 504 idea and ada and the council will think that's great that i think that's yeah so we'll go and add that in i think that helps clarify it um assuages concerns and then It keeps the policy clear about what it will do.

[00:04:23] Any further discussion? No. So with that, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor of moving this to the full school board, please raise your hand and say aye. As amended. So that will pass unanimously to board members present. That will move on to 501.

[00:04:43] Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. I'll hand it over to Mr. Mike Henderson to do the presentation. So I'll let you take it away. Thanks, Mr. Smith. So, this evening we wanted to share some information about some transitions that we're making and how we collect some information or get some insights into how our students are using technology and how that technology is supporting student learning in the classroom and at home.

[00:05:12] And so, we have been partnered with, you can go to the first slide there. We've been partnered with BrightBytes since 2016. BrightBytes is an organization, it's a data analytics organization that helps school divisions gain insights into many different things.

[00:05:33] They have a few different product offerings. The product offerings that we use in LCPS were their technology and learning survey, which they then updated into what they call their modern learning survey. And we've been using that since 2016. And then I think in 2018 or 2019, we started using a tool of theirs called EdTech Impact, which is a tool that helped us measure the way our students interact with websites that support student learning.

[00:06:00] And it gave us some information about which sites our students were visiting, how long they were spending there, when they were visiting those sites. So it gave us some additional pieces of the puzzle to help us understand how students are using their assigned devices.

[00:06:16] So BrightBytes was acquired by Google in 2022, and we were informed by our contacts at BrightBytes just this spring that they are sunsetting their current product offerings and retooling and kind of resetting into some what of their next-gen services are going to be so their products were no longer going to be available to us so we needed to find some additional tools that would fill those gaps thank you the data that we were getting out of these tools informed give us some information about what that day-to-day experience was like with with the technology and

[00:06:55] how our students were using it. Helped us identify what professional learning needs were. So we would get data out of the survey and if we see certain trends or patterns in how kids are using devices in school, how their teachers are asking them to use devices that might help us inform professional learning.

[00:07:12] There were specific questions around professional learning for teachers saying what specific professional learning would you be interested in for helping use technology to support instruction and we were able to use that to drive our planning. And when we're looking at usage of specific applications that could also drive professional learnings.

[00:07:29] We could see if usage matched up with our expectations and if not, then we had to start to ask questions about why might that be and what might we do to address that and how might we increase usage if we wanted to see improved usage. And then it helped us measure our progress over time.

[00:07:45] So we look at survey results over the years or we could look at usage over time and help us understand if we were meeting our technology goals. So with our BrightBytes tools, we had really two needs that we were trying to address.

[00:08:02] One is getting better insights into how technology is supporting student learning from the perspective of different stakeholder groups. So students, parents, teachers, school leaders, those were the different survey groups or stakeholder groups that responded to the survey and let us know how technology was supporting student learning from their perspective.

[00:08:20] And then that second need is getting some insights into how students are using those specific technology tools. So if BrightBytes is no longer an option, we need to identify some alternative sources for those data points. So for need one, getting some insights into how students are using technology in school and at home from different stakeholder groups, we're gonna partner with Virginia Department of Education who is working with a group called Speak Up, or sorry, working with a group called Project Tomorrow to do a survey that they call Speak Up Survey.

[00:08:55] That Speak Up Survey is about 20 years old at this point, so it is a well-used, proven practice, a proven tool for collecting data about student technology use.

[00:09:12] The VDOE partnership allows us to get access to a VDOE customized version of the tool. BDOE is encouraging school Virginia divisions to participate so that they have as complete a data set as they can, and then also so Virginia divisions get some access to comparative data, so we'll be able to look at our survey results and then compare ourselves against the state and see how we measure up in those ways.

[00:09:41] The themes and the kinds of questions that are in the survey are similar to those kinds of questions we were getting from BrightBytes questions about you know do you have access to the technology that you need how are you using this technology in the classroom how are you using it at home do you have the support that you need so we'll get some similar information out of the survey and so so we'll have some continuity with the data that we were getting from BrightBytes the survey window the video we is has published recently as October 26 through January 31st we're working with the research team to nail down an exact

[00:10:17] survey window that we're going to use here in LCPS, but we're looking at probably the end of that window, sort of the middle of January, as our survey window here for LCPS. There are different versions of the survey for different stakeholder groups for students, different grade bands, teachers and parents, and then families will have an opportunity to review the survey and opt out if they would prefer their child not participate. So the second need, measuring how our students are engaging with specific applications that support their learning.

[00:10:55] We are going to shift to a tool that's provided by Clever. Clever is a third-party application or they're a third-party organization that acts kind of as a data middleman between our school division and third-party providers. And what they do is they make it easy for us to get data to them in a common format that they can then take and give to providers to, you know, create student accounts and make that login process easy for students across those different applications.

[00:11:28] So they have a tool that they call EdTech Analytics that works in a similar way to the BrightBytes tool. There's a Chrome extension that sits on the student devices. It measures the interactions with a defined list of websites that students might access to support their learning and then gives us some information into how they are using those websites.

[00:11:47] And then we can see that on a district dashboard, and there will also be school-level dashboards, so schools can get access to some specific information about what their students are doing with their devices and what websites they're using and all those things. So this is just a screenshot that shows some of the analytics that we would get from EdTech Analytics.

[00:12:09] This is just a generic screenshot from their website. This isn't LCPS data, so I also apologize for it being small, but it just gives you a little bit of a window into the kinds of data we're seeing. So we'll be able to see the total number of applications used, the amount of time the students are spending on those applications, things like that.

[00:12:29] The EdTech analytics data is maybe not quite as granular as what we were getting out of the BrightBytes tool, but it is available to us at no additional cost, and that's something we can get stood up relatively quickly.

[00:12:49] And with that, we'll take whatever questions you may have. Thank you very much for that. I shared any questions? So my first question is, is the sun setting from BrightBytes the only thing really driving this change? Or was BrightBytes not filling a need and this is kind of a nice way to excuse to pick something else out?

[00:13:13] I think the primary driver of the change was the fact that those products that we were using for BrightBytes were no longer going to be available. So we needed to search for alternatives. I think it is a nice, it gives us a nice opportunity for alignment to then shift to the speak up survey, which the VDOE is encouraging us to participate in anyway.

[00:13:32] They encouraged our participation last year, and we had the bright bright survey in place, and we were already going down that road, and so we chose not to prioritize the speak up survey. So that alignment, I think, is just a nice added benefit.

[00:13:48] Okay. Why didn't we pick the speak up survey earlier? If it's been around for 20 years, is this just because VDOE has recently picked it up as well, or are there other bigger reasons? When we first adopted the BrightBytes survey in 2016, that was a tool that division leadership at that time was familiar with and encouraged us to use.

[00:14:10] And then we had that relationship where we were able to see the data over time, so we continued with that partnership. But if the survey had been around since, I guess, 2003, why wouldn't we have started with it way back when? Do you know, I don't know if any of us were in the building at that time, so maybe we don't know, but do you have any idea about that?

[00:14:29] No, I don't have much insight into that. I'm sorry. Okay. Are we already using Clever for the data brokering, or is this something we have to sort of implement and add on? So Clever as a data broker and as a single sign-on component, we've been using that. It's an integrated platform, so it's a third party, but LCPS does not pay for that usage.

[00:14:48] it's the vendor goes out and gets those services so then you can have rostering student rostering is a huge component of that and then single sign on authentication pass through so this is just a component that is to be enabled to turn it on it like mr henderson said it is not as feature rich as bright bytes was but it gets us pretty close for zero additional cost and like we're paying zero dollars for clever at this point but yes it's it's used we probably have a hundred plus applications that are rostered in at this point and then talking about that granularity do we have an idea talks about applications but is that like a particular website or do we would we have an idea

[00:15:25] for what websites are being used and like even if it's youtube or something like what videos are being watched or is it is it at a much higher level in terms of the granularity so i'll take the stab at one side of it is that this is from a preset of educational tools so that you can say all right we have this many licenses of this tool how can we see how it's being used it wouldn't necessarily deep dive into all of the different applications that a student is using and that's where like a content filter would come in and do that side of the reporting so it's really focused on the ed tech tools okay so it's a lot more it is truly more like just analytics like we've got a thousand licenses for adobe photoshop and we're only using 500 for example it could it could be

[00:16:05] used in that kind of way yes you don't do photoshop on the chromebooks but even in that same sort of right right so we know we're paying for x number of licenses of we video let's look and see how our We video use it's going across the division, how many students are actively using it. A very high level, doesn't allow us to drill down very deep.

[00:16:23] With BrightBytes, we could drill down to classroom level, you know, as far down the classroom level. This is very high level, just, you know, division or school, and the data isn't very granular. But it is a solution that was available to us, as Mr. Smith said, at no additional cost, and it was a natural thing for us to explore to fill some of those gaps that we had with BrightBytes.

[00:16:47] Do we have an idea if Clever might add some of those drill-down features, especially if BrightBytes is sunsetting? I imagine other school divisions are going to be in a similar situation. Do they have a product roadmap in that vein? So we've provided some feedback to our Clever contacts. We do, even though we don't contract directly with them, we do have a point of contact that we engage with.

[00:17:06] And we've provided, they've provided us with some opportunities to share some things. I'm not exactly sure where those fall on their roadmap, but we have made suggestions to them from all the way from rostering to single sign on all the way through to the application platform we previously were piloting it at three schools so that's where we do have some data on the usage of it so we're not just turning it on we actually have three schools that were using it for a year or so something along those lines so um it is something we've been kind of knowing was there and keeping it in the back of our minds so when we go live with it it's it's something that's already been deployed at three schools we just need to elevate that to, and it's pretty much an automated push of a Chrome extension to get it to work, so it's pretty straightforward.

[00:17:44] Okay, great. Mr. Sheridan? Thank you for finding a solution to fill in where we're going to lose an item. Do you think, I think you said Google bought BrightBytes, I said that wrong. Do you think they'll be coming up with, will we be watching to see what they come up with?

[00:18:07] Yes, but I honestly don't really have much insight in the vendor. my vendor contacts weren't able to give me too much insight into what their next offering might be. I got the sense that they could stay in kind of a similar space or they could ship to something completely different. They'll probably want to make a big reveal if they do. But thanks for checking on that. Okay. Thank you so much for this presentation. It's very informative. I guess the next committee will look forward to seeing how it all goes.

[00:18:41] With that, we'll move on to new business. Is there any new business? No. And with that, we'll move on to adjournment. We are adjourned. Thank you.

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