The Westbury School District Board of Education has approved a spending plan for its $3.4 million state grant, which will provide technological upgrades throughout the district.
The board held a public hearing to gauge community input on how to use the funding at its Tuesday, Dec. 16, meeting; however, no members of the public provided any suggestions.
The district received a one-time grant of $3,440,766 through the state’s Smart Schools Bond Act, a 2014 state initiative, to enhance educational technology and infrastructure in support of 21st-century learning.
The school released its Preliminary Smart Schools Investment Plan at a board meeting in December 2024, highlighting the rules governing the use of the funding. Assistant Business Administrator for Operations, Robert Stein, presented the same information at the meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 16.
According to the presentation, the money can be allocated to one of six categories: school security and safety, school networking, classroom technology, community connection, Pre-K classroom improvements and/or elimination of temporary/trailer classrooms.
Smart Bond funds cannot be used to pay salaries or BOCES, or for purchasing software, it states.
The district created a Smart School Planning Committee, which had recommended to the board that it use the funding to upgrade the district’s high-tech security and school networking to provide a safe and secure learning environment, the presentation states.
Floyd Ewing III, the board’s vice president, was part of the committee, saying that the members researched the district’s technology capabilities.
“The plan is to enhance our IT capabilities for not only academic purposes, but also for security purposes and facilities districtwide,” he said.
The upgrades would include emergency classroom notification systems at multiple buildings, a districtwide VoIP phone System for emergency communication, network and computer network cable upgrades, electronic door entry control, security and emergency communication generators, and new intrusion detection systems for all schools, according to the presentation.
The high-tech security upgrades would cost an estimated $450,000 and the school networking upgrades would cost an estimated $1,300,000, district officials said.
The committee recommended that the remaining funds be considered “evergreen” and that they could be used for whatever is needed, leaving roughly $1,690,766 up for the district’s discretion.
The district posted a pop-up on its website in November, informing community members that they could submit proposals on how they thought the funding should be used. Robert Troiano, the board’s president, said at Tuesday’s meeting that the district received zero responses.
No community members spoke during Tuesday’s public hearing, leading Troiano to jokingly say that it might be “a record short meeting.”
The board also awarded tenure to Westbury High School Business teacher La-Toisha Sullivan and Powells Lane Elementary School Library Media Assistant John Sutorius at Tuesday’s meeting.
