If approved at next Wednesday's meeting, students in the South Butler County School District will enjoy even more technology upgrades next year.

Superintendent David Foley said at the Wednesday school board meeting that he will recommend board approval next week for technology expenditures totaling $450,000, but only $25,000 will come from the district's budget.

Foley said the bulk of the technology purchase will be funded by a second Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) grant, which recently provided $2 million to the district.

“We've got a considerable amount of grant money that we are investing in students,” Foley said.

Foley said teachers reported during the pandemic — when students alternated between learning at school and at home — that wireless service in the middle and high schools was holding them back from educating students.

He is asking the board to approve a grant expenditure of $55,000 for upgraded wireless at Knoch High School and $42,000 for Knoch Middle School.

Foley also told the board that the Promethean boards, which were a high-tech upgrade from chalkboards when they were added in 2009, are at the end of their expected life cycle.

Lately, the boards have required extensive repairs to keep them operating, he said.

Foley asked that $206,518 of the ESSER funds be spent on interactive touch panels for the middle school and $114,732 for the intermediate elementary school.

He said a demonstration model is set up in the primary school where teachers can try the panels out.

After scoring the units, Foley will provide a recommendation to the board on Wednesday regarding the purchase of 70 of the panels for the two schools.

Other technology expenditures include devices to allow synchronization with future technology purchases, network monitoring software and data-wiping, packing and shipping costs for returning 280 leased Dell computers.

He also recommended that capital funds be spent on replacing the aging and occasionally malfunctioning school zone blinker signs along Dinnerbell and Knoch roads that alert drivers to slow to 15 mph.

Foley said the district has invested more than $1 million in technology over the past three or four years.