This afternoon, a school board meeting will be held regarding next year’s initiative of issuing each student a laptop for school use. The purpose of FCPSOn is for students to have a personalized learning experience and express their knowledge outside of purely test-based environment.

“There’s a group of school board members who don’t see the full benefit of technology,” principal Ellen Reilly said.

However, some members of the school board see the blending learning as a problem because of how it increases screen-usage, which is especially an issue for elementary school children, how it will require lots of our already tight budget and how it could lead to teachers losing their jobs. As a result, the school is prepared to rebuttal against their remarks with a thorough presentation in order to convince all school staffers of the benefits that project-based learning provides to the student body, and a vote will be held at the end to decide whether or not this initiative will continue.

“The school is prepared with a presentation to rebuttal their remarks, and they will make a decision at 1:30 on whether or not the initiative will go through,” Reilly said.

The school’s goal in this is to enhance its students’ independent learning with an opportunity for them to have a deeper understanding of core concepts to ultimately increase their success rates. With such, further county-wide discussions related to the matter will take place throughout the school year in FCPS’s pursuit of a more technology-based learning environment.  

In the end, the school’s argument and presentation was successful, and the majority of the school board votes “Yes.” Because of this, McLean High School looks to provide a more technology-oriented learning environment in future years to come.