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The Arcola School District
published an End of the
Year Report in 2015 for all
district stakeholders. This
report has elicited on-going
conversations and dynamic
comments about the
district.
The spring of 2014 marked
a true educational
partnership between the
Arcola School District and
the community of Arcola.
Community leaders worked
with district leaders to establish a common goal
of providing a one to one digital learning
environment, which led to the community
raising over $650,000 for the students of
Arcola. This allowed the district to place an
iPad and case in every student’s hands and
also allowed for a MacBook, iPad, Apple TV,
and Apple compatible projector to be
purchased for every classroom.
To honor this generous donation, our
district was committed to providing the
community with on-going information about the
one to one digital learning environment. We
did this through various social media outlets,
our website, articles in the local paper, etc. As
we began to see results towards the end of the
year, our goal was to highlight those results while
providing the community with something memorable.
We hoped to use the community’s interest in our new
partnership to not only highlight the successes from
our one to one digital learning platform, but to also
feature other key initiatives in the district and focus
on the endless list of achievements of our students
and staff members.
To create the report, we worked with our local
paper and their graphic designer. We provided the
pictures and all the text in the report, and the graphic
designer used her talents to put together a draft
report. The total cost for the report, including the
graphic designer’s time and printing, was $2,250 for
1,000 copies of the report. We could have added
additional copies at a much lower cost per booklet.
To distribute the report, we provided each family with
a copy at registration. The paper provided us with
their mailing list and we mailed our report to
everyone on their list, as well as anyone that donated
to the digital learning fund. In addition, we provided
local businesses and area realtors with copies of the
report to distribute as well.
We plan to do this report annually and make this
a tradition in our community. Based on the great
feedback from parents and community members, this
is something they will be looking forward to each
year. This report will become an annual reminder of
the successful partnership and we will be able to
share the good news in our district and at the same
time, keep everyone informed of new and on-going
initiatives.
Click
here to view the End of Year Report.
Sharing the good news in your district
By Dr. Tom
Mulligan,
superintendent
Arcola 306
Dr. Tom Mulligan
has been an administrator in Illinois for over 20 years. He is currently in his fifteenth year
as a superintendent and his second year in the Arcola School District. He earned his PhD in Educational Ad-
ministration in 2005. He is proud to have been a member of IASA since 2001.