Florida allocated about $55.6 million in state funds to support public school technology for the 2004-05 school year, and state officials expect that amount to stay about the same for the upcoming school year.
While the state鈥檚 73 school districts have considerable autonomy over how they spend the money, the Florida Department of Education recommends that districts spend it in line with the state technology plan.
To bolster technology efforts, many Florida districts spend more than twice what they get from the state on educational technology, pulling together resources from federal, state, and local governments as well as private sources.
For the 33,000-student Leon County Schools, one of Florida鈥檚 top 20 districts in size, the state allocation for this school year was about $900,000. The district used about $230,000 on technology infrastructure and prorated the rest for schools to use in support of their own school improvement plans, according to Bill Piotrowsky, the executive director for technology and information services for the Leon County schools.
鈥淎lternative funding sources,鈥� Piotrowsky says, 鈥渁re easily ten times the amount we receive from the state.鈥�
The county鈥檚 half-cent sales tax has provided critical funding for technology infrastructure and instructional software. The revenue has enabled schools to replace computers every five years.
Meanwhile, Just Read! Florida is the state鈥檚 only statewide reading initiative, and it offered $32 million in grants for the 2004-05 school year to elementary and middle schools. While officials say they can鈥檛 estimate the percentage of that money that is spent on educational technology, the grants provide schools with a way to purchase computer software that supports reading instruction.
During the 2003-04 school year, the Florida Virtual School, the nation鈥檚 largest state-sponsored online school, reported having about 13,000 actual students enrolled in its courses, a number that jumped to more than 21,000 for the 2004-05 school year.
The school鈥檚 2004-05 budget was $12.5 million.
