What is Technology at RIS?

Administratively, there are two ways of looking at this question:

Technical standardization refers to most questions of hardware and software that are commonly used throughout the school.

Curricular specialization refers to most questions of hardware and software that are used for subject or grade specific purposes.

Regarding budget, items that fall into the technical standardization category should be handled by the budget of the Technology Committee, and items that fall into the curricular specialization category should be handled by the budget of the Academic Services office.

Regarding purchase approval, requests that fall into the technical standardization category are first examined by different members of the Technology Committee, in consultation with other members of the school community before being submitted to the school headmaster for approval. For requests that fall into the curricular specialization category, department heads, principals and the Technology Committee must first approve the request before it can be submitted to the Academic Services office, and then to the School Headmaster for approval. This process is detailed in the document “Purchasing Software, videos, texts and related items for classroom preparation and professional development,” found in the K-12 Technology Standards and Benchmarks Handbook.

Examples of Technical Standardization purchases are:

Examples of Curricular Specialization purchases are:

Other parts or offices of the school, such as personnel, finance, buildings & ground or libraries, often require special technology purchases. For these requests the purchase proposal must go through the Technology Committee before final purchase approval.