Trustees of the Benicia Unified School District heard an update on the second goal for BUSD’s Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), which includes modernizing instruction and infrastructure, at Thursday’s school board meeting.

The LCAP is a plan that is required by all public schools in California to receive funding provided through the Local Control Funding Formula, which was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013. The LCAP outlines three goals, the first of which is to create a team of engaged staff to support the success of all students so they are ready for college and careers. Ruben Fernandez, the director of technology, gave an overview on the second goal which was to “modernize and improve infrastructure to provide a learning environment that offers opportunities for 21st century teaching and learning.”

“We’ve seen much of this work carried out through our bond measure,” Fernandez said. “We’ve created learning environments that empower our students to become digital learners, laying the groundwork for the integration of digital technology. You see a lot of that coming out this year as the infrastructure’s been built.”

Among the desired outcomes Fernandez highlighted were for the trustees to understand the increased access to devices within the district, the student uses of Google applications and the impact of the devices in the teaching and learning process.

At the start of the 2016-17 school year, the access to student devices had gone up by 20 percent from the previous school year, Fernandez noted.

“These devices have become a portfolio to the students,” he said. “What I mean by that is it’s kind of what you would need to get on our school days what our encyclopedia meant to us, what our three-ring binder meant to us, what our library card and our textbook meant to us but now presented in kind of a dynamic way, not a static way where the encyclopedia was static, and we have dynamic internet resources out there for us.”

Among other things, the student access to Google Apps for Education had gone up from 2015-16, and Fernandez noted that even instruction looks different, with increased 1-to-1 computing in Benicia Middle School’s English classes, increased access to online textbooks and the implementation of Active Learning Spaces at Benicia High School and the new Viking Village at BMS.

“I started here five years ago,” Leslie Beatson, assistant superintendent of educational services, said. “I remember coming to one of my first administrative meetings, and nobody had a computer with them.”

“Just in those five years, we’ve come so far,” she added.

Trustee Peter Morgan praised the presentation’s inclusion of a slide on desired outcomes but felt there needed to be more explanation on measuring the impact of those outcomes.

“Can you actually show that it’s improving educational opportunities?” he said. “Professional development, again, can you be more specific on are we offering 10 programs a year, 12 programs a year? Does it increase each time?”

“How do you know when you’re successful?” he added.

“We’re successful when students and staff have the choice to choose what technology they want to work with,” Fernandez said. “One of our goals is to provide devices that meet the needs of everyone.”

President Gary Wing asked what capacity the district was at on its bandwidth and storage.

“We do have a plan in place to increase capacity, both not the wide area network, which is connecting both sites together, and the actual internet part,” Fernandez said.

Trustee Diane Ferrucci was very happy to see transitional kindergarten using iPad technology, but in visits to site schools, she saw very little of it in kindergarten and first grade classrooms.

“Is there any idea of also talking about infusing some of those learning tools into the lower grades?” she asked.

“We’re seeing some penetration at the first and second grade levels with Google Apps for Education,” Fernandez said. “We did the secondary level first— we did the middle and high school— and we launched Google Apps there. That really drove the ‘why?’ around it. Later on, we did 3-5, and we’re seeing second and first-grade teachers ask for that access too.”

“It’s a comfort level,” he said. “It’s a next step.”

In other business, the board voted 4-0— trustee Stacy Holguin was absent— to appoint two new members to the Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee and reappoint three members to new terms. Superintendent Charles Young read a proclamation declaring September as Suicide Prevention Month, and the board highlighted the cross-curricular work of Benicia High art teacher Dan Frazier, who has done projects with students integrating art into robotics, math and even culinary arts. Frazier’s presentation “Rocket Math: Making the Most Out of Cross Curricular Projects” was accepted into the National Art Education Association’s 2017 National Convention. The convention will be held from March 2 to 4 in New York City.

The board will next meet Thursday, Oct. 6.