For the 2014-15 school year Albemarle County plans to implement the 1:1 Initiative at both Western and Henley. Next year, the entire incoming class of freshmen at WAHS, as well as seventh graders at Henley, will each be assigned a laptop to use for schoolwork throughout the year. The initiative has already been implemented in other division area schools with success. Monticello went 1:1 this year and members of their staff plan on working with the WAHS administration to help with the process and logistics of the initiative. Professional development days will take place this summer to make sure that Western teachers are comfortable with the program and ready to apply it in the fall.

The concept is that teachers will be able to use the computers to incorporate technology into their curriculum. Ninth grade teachers will have to adapt their classrooms the most, but eventually as each new freshman class is distributed computers that they keep with them for all four years of high school, all teachers will be affected.

In defense to concerns that increased technology will lead to a decrease in class quality, Mr. Driver clarifies, “It’s a teaching tool. It doesn’t replace good teaching or good instruction.” Driver is also confident in the server’s ability to provide for the added number of computers that it will need to support. A study by the school’s GIS class concluded that while the public WiFi that people connect to on their personal devices is extremely slow, the private WiFi is relatively fast.

Vincet Scheivert, Chief Information Officer of Albemarle County Public Schools, assures  that there is no concern regarding a stint in the school wifi. Mr. Scheivert explains that the school wifi has received a number of enhancements throughout the course of the year. Now the number of wireless access points at Western has grown to about one per every classroom. Scheivert says, “This allows for each classroom to support 30 plus laptops. The bandwidth between Western Albemarle and the school’s Data Center was also increased from 1 gbps connection to a 10gbps during the school year. The schools division’s bandwidth to the internet was also increased from 250 mbps to 2gbps earlier this year.”