The power of partnerships: How Calcasieu Parish School Board has turned tragedy into an opportunity for a twenty-first century education

Calcasieu Parish School Board sits on the border with Texas in the southwest corner of Louisiana. The school district includes approximately 29,000 students spread over 100 square miles, making it the fifth largest in the state. Recently, the pandemic plus a series of natural disasters tested the limits of Calcasieu Parish as a community. Rather than passing the burden along to individual families to navigate the tumultuous situation, Calcasieu Parish emphasized the power of partnerships with government, local industry, administrators, educators, and families. For that, they relied upon the capabilities of Microsoft 365 education solutions. The results have been astounding as this once devastated parish is now utilizing educational technologies to provide a path to recovery for its students and its community.

Partnerships for the students

With almost 35 years of experience in the classroom and in her current role as Chief Technology Officer for the parish, Kim Leblanc has relished her role in helping students develop a path to success using technology. Given the demands of working with a rural population, Kim explains that it was always a “dream” to move to a one-to-one model where each student was issued a device, but the funds were simply not available to make that a reality. When the federal government partnered with states to provide funds for technology, Calcasieu Parish decided that pandemics and natural disasters would not stand in their way of achieving their hopes for delivering equitable education to everyone in the parish.

The first step, Kim explained, was to create a committee that represented the partnerships that would be essential to success for the community. The committee was made up of 50 people whose tasks included evaluating the current state of the district’s technology, reviewing the available options, and making a recommendation on which devices would best help Calcasieu students, and the broader community, going forward. Per Kim, the key to the committee’s success was thinking beyond the immediate needs of the classroom by inviting local industry leaders to the committee. The industry leaders explained what the students would need to know to help contribute to the revival of the parish economy.

“We have the Microsoft 365 A5 license, and the kids can get the licensing on their home computers. That's a big plus for us because the district wanted the parents and the community to have the same tools that our students have.”

Kim LeBlanc, Chief Technology Officer, Calcasieu Parish School Board

According to Kim, “one of the big decisions was choosing Microsoft or Google. We had a lot of voices from industry explaining that they wanted us on Microsoft because it was industry-standard software. There is abundant industry in this area, a lot of our kids work locally, and that's what these employers are looking for, so it was important that we helped our students to be prepared for these jobs by picking Microsoft.”

With the vital input from industry, educators, administrators, and other key stakeholders, the committee decided on Dell devices utilizing the Microsoft 365 ecosystem for the new one-to-one model. Despite the devastation, Calcasieu had a plan for helping its students harness the power of educational technologies that went beyond the traditional classroom. With the power of these partnerships, Calcasieu was now investing in the economic potential of the wider community by ensuring that its graduates were positioned to step into industry roles right away.

Harnessing the power of Microsoft 365

Managing the deployment and maintenance of tens of thousands of devices is no easy task, but Lisa Mullett has been working in Technology Support for the district for over twenty years. Lisa articulated that part of the success of the one-to-one adoption was the power of the Microsoft ecosystem to support a large deployment while maintaining security for the devices. As Lisa explains, “Dell ships our devices with Autopilot, and we use Intune to manage them. Before the move to one-to-one, we could only see where they were on our network. But now we can see where they are when they bring the devices home. Intune integrates with Calcasieu’s help desk system, so we can do hard drive wipes, review device process logs, restart devices—things like that straight from that interface. So, everyone on our IT loves it.”

With the devices in hand, the educators have embraced the Microsoft ecosystem including Microsoft 365 to help students harness the power of technology. As Kim explains, “all our educators use the basic set of Microsoft tools including PowerPoint, Forms, Word, Excel, and Teams. But if I had to say what has been their favorite—educators really love OneNote. I think that was the big differentiator for us not going to Google on the teacher side—the simplicity and elegance of OneNote features for the classroom, for the student, and for the educator.”

As educators continued to innovate their pedagogy in ways that were transforming the student experience—like integrating Minecraft into the curriculum—the stakeholders quickly realized that restricting these amazing technologies and this educational ecosystem to the classroom would miss an opportunity to truly help rebuild the community. As Kim explains, taking a broader community perspective on educational technologies helped them decide on the Microsoft 365 A5 license as their education platform and Windows devices. She notes, “one of the biggest features that is a plus for our area is that we have the A5 license, and the kids can get the licensing on their home computers. That's a big plus for us because the district wanted the parents and the community to have the same tools that our students have.”

For the administrators, the technology has been important, but ensuring access to the educational benefits for all Calcasieu students has been essential. Kim and Lisa’s point of view is that the accessibility features in Microsoft 365 have been crucial to making sure that all Calcasieu students have benefited from this transition. Lisa highlights that the translation tools built into Reading Progress have been indispensable in helping when English is a second language. For Kim, access is not just limited to software, it’s also about how students create and sustain digital environments that are welcoming to other students—it is enhanced and sustained when administrators have access and control over what is happening with the devices at any given time.

As Judith Mendoza, who teaches Spanish and Science courses, notes: “I don’t know what I would do without Microsoft 365 tools like PowerPoint, and Teams, or all the different digital resources that I use in my classrooms. We don’t do anything on paper anymore, because we have such wonderful tools, and everything is in Microsoft 365, Teams, and Canvas.”

Pam Nicholson, who serves as a Technology Training Coordinator in the Parish, echoes Judith’s thoughts: “Just the fact that Microsoft is an integrated and complete package for us really helps to make great use of the kids’ devices, and drive student achievement, but we’re also teaching them things that they’re going to be able to use when they graduate and move into the workforce.”

Partnerships for the future

In the wake of the recent natural disasters, Calcasieu Parish stakeholders decided that the path forward was by working together to make sure that every student had access to the vital educational technologies for a twenty-first century education. By partnering with industry leaders, administrators, educators, and families, the school district decided that technology decisions should be built around community needs. That holistic perspective led them to embrace their dreams for a one-to-one model using Dell devices and the Microsoft ecosystem. The key to making it all work has been partnerships.

As Kim summarizes, “When we first started with Microsoft and the total district implementation, we were assigned a great team of Microsoft professionals. They assisted us at every step along the way. We still have great contacts so we have people we can call when we have questions. They are always so supportive.”

With the work being done these last handful of years, and the help and support they’ve had along the way, the Calcasieu Parish School District has emerged from a series of catastrophes and disruptions with partnerships and commitments that will continue to benefit their students, and by extension their communities, for decades to come.

“All our educators use the basic set of Microsoft tools including PowerPoint, Forms, Word, Excel, and Teams. But if I had to say what has been their favorite—educators really love OneNote. I think that was the big differentiator for us not going to Google on the teacher side—the simplicity and elegance of OneNote features for the classroom, for the student, and for the educator.”

Kim LeBlanc, Chief Technology Officer, Calcasieu Parish School Board