School District Creating 21st Century Classrooms

One school district in the upper valley has received funding from the state to make classrooms more modern.

For the Sugar-Salem School District, providing students and teachers with the latest in technology and computer software is of utmost importance.

School officials said these tools allow teachers to build lesson plans, incorporate digital content into those lesson plans, share them with other teachers and create assessments on student performance.

“The key components of a 21st Century Classroom is that every classroom has a highly effective teacher and that every teacher has the 21st century tools necessary to access information outside of the classroom and inside,” said Tom Luna, State Superintendent.

A $100,000 grant from the “Students Come First” initiative was recently awarded to the Sugar-Salem School District and will go toward providing students and teachers with these tools to make their classrooms more modern.

“If we’re not aligning our curriculum and how we teach in the classroom to how students are accustomed to receiving information, we’re not going to reach them as well as we could,” said Marc Gee, Principal at Kershaw Intermediate School.

“It’s critical that our classrooms have the technology necessary so the teachers can access a world of information that’s out there,” said Luna.

Sugar-Salem is one of 15 school districts statewide to receive this grant. Other school districts receiving this same grant include Meridian, Coeur d’Alene, New Plymouth and Buhl.