HUMBOLDT — Once again, Humboldt High School is being nationally recognized for success and innovation in the classroom. This time, U.S. News and World Report ranked Humboldt High as the second “most connected classroom” in the country.
The news and analysis publisher, which includes U.S. News Weekly magazine, also awarded USD 258 a Bronze Medal in its “Best High Schools in America” rankings — the fifth consecutive year the district received the honor.
“We are very proud of our students and staff … for receiving these prestigious awards,” said K.B. Criss, USD 258 Superintendent of Schools.
The Most Connected Classrooms rankings measure the modernity and quality of high schools’ online infrastructure, and the access students, parents and faculty have to them at school and home.
Humboldt High Principal Craig Smith said the award is deserved recognition for the entire USD 258 community’s dedication to creating technologically driven educational institutions.
“It’s good feedback for everybody involved — the kids, the teachers and the staff. They get the recognition that they deserve but don’t always get,” he said. “And it’s recognition from people who are not local. This is not someone from Humboldt patting us on the back.”
Receiving two grants worth about $500,000 to turn its elementary building into a technology charter and technologically enrich classrooms in the middle school, the USD 258 school board didn’t wait for more free money to move in the same direction with high school.
Equipping all the high school classrooms with interactive SMART Boards, electronic projectors and computers was a must after the decision was made to focus on technology in the other two buildings, Smith said.
“When you have kids that have been doing assignments on iPod clickers in fifth grade and then all of a sudden you’re going to go back to the lecture, it just doesn’t work,” he said.
Although it was only five years ago that the district began its serious push toward technology with the elementary charter, Humboldt High’s media teacher Kim Isbell said she can see a ripple effect.
“When the elementary got their charter grant, we started beefing up the middle school because we knew those kids were coming. And that’s how they learn,” she said. “The kids coming through the middle school, they’ve already seen that technology. They already know the basics.”
And those basics serve them well when the students are “using technology every single day,” Isbell said.
Getting technology into the classrooms is only the first step in creating an educational environment built around a high-quality online infrastructure, Smith said.
“Just getting it here is not enough. You have to train (the teachers) and you have to have people that want to. We have teachers in their fifth year teaching and people who are five years away from retirement, and all of them have jumped on board,” he said, pointing to the school’s website where each teacher has their own page which they maintain and update on their own as an example of USD 258’s increasingly tech-based focus.
The Most Connected Classrooms rankings were gathered from the 301 high schools on U.S. News and World Report’s Best High Schools list.
Tech-focus earns USD 258 national recognition
