TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT
A Statement of Goals & Vision
The Chester County Technology Department supports and promotes the educational programs implemented by Chester County Schools to provide academic excellence in an environment that emphasizes balanced growth intellectually, physically, spiritually and socially. The Department develops, executes, and monitors strategies that produce people who understand technology as the application of knowledge to bring about change. The vision of the Department is to empower administrators, faculty, staff, and students to know how and when to use information technology. The Department provides the information technology infrastructure, resources, and support services for an effective, responsive, customer-focused operation.
Information technology is ever-changing, requiring constant attention to short-range goals and roles. Long-range strategies must deal with the realities of change so that accurate forecasting of resource requirements and time-lines provides growth consistent with the needs of Chester County Schools to meet the challenges of the new century. The department cooperates with administrative, faculty, and staff partners to provide leadership in information technology resource planning.
The broad-based responsibilities of the Department include computers, campus networks, and telephone services. Although computer technology has become synonymous with information technology in education parlance, I.T. departmental focus is on multiple approaches to information access and delivery, on information and its uses rather than the specific technology used for processing. This deployment of technology maximizes its impact on executing and optimizing educational strategies and processes. The approach identifies and implements the most appropriate technology for education solutions within a "managed for success" environment.
The Department approaches resource development, implementation, and management with an emphasis upon people, the ultimate resource. Departmental personnel are liaisons with the larger education community. The success of this philosophy is increased competence, responsibility, and empathy for Information Technology Consultants and the education community partners. Departmental support processes assure meaningful goals that best meet the needs and concerns of Chester County Schools.
COPPA Statement
Visit this site to determine if you should be using this tool with your students: privacy.commonsense.org/evaluations/1
Chester County Schools understands that there are thousands of online and digital resources that can help students, as well as teachers, learn and grow. However, there are some resources that do not meet the standards set forth in the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). It is our goal to vet every resource available to students to ensure the protection of student privacy. In addition, we wish to be sure the information used when utilizing these resources does not put any private information at risk.
Below is a list of vetted and approved resources that require student information and meet the requirements of COPPA. The following list of resources has been approved by Chester County Schools for our teachers to use. There may be exceptions to this list, and teachers may gain special permission for any online resources that are not on the list.
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) gives parents control over what information websites can collect from their children that are under the age of 13. The COPPA Rule puts additional protections in place and streamlines other procedures that companies covered by the rule need to follow. The COPPA FAQs can help keep your company COPPA compliant. Learn about the COPPA Safe Harbor Program and about organizations the FTC has approved to implement safe harbor programs. You can also get information about ways to get verifiable parental consent– including new methods the Commission has approved – and the process for seeking approval for new methods.
There are many different online and digital resources that can help students and teachers improve and enhance the teaching process. These can be a great resource to students and teachers, but some sites can put student data at risk. Chester County Schools is committed to protecting student online information. We have developed a process that allows us to vet the websites that teachers use and ensure that the sites that we use for instruction meet the requirements of COPPA if they collect any student data.
Only the resources that collect student data for use for students that are under the age of 13 are included on the list below and have been approved and vetted for use by teachers for Chester County Schools.
Approved Apps and Sites
*List of sites changes frequently. Not all students will use all Apps or Sites listed.*