WINFIELD - The Putnam County Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved spending $60,017 to supplement the grant funding the county receives for Buffalo High School's New Tech Network program.
The program encourages teachers at the school to engage in project-based learning, and allows each student at the school to work on a laptop.
"Kids seem to like it. It's going very well," said Putnam County Superintendent Chuck Hatfield. "We went down there and met with students and staff several times and they feel really good about it."
Despite these feelings, Hatfield said it's going to be difficult to know statistically how effective New Tech Network's program has been for the school.
The school, entering its third and perhaps final year with the program, relies on statewide test scores to measure the program's efficiency.
During the first year of the grant, the school used WESTEST2, and this year it used the Smarter Balanced Assessment.
Putnam School administrators will try and compare results from both exams to get a better understanding of the programs' efficiency.
The grant the school received was originally for three years, according to Hatfield, and the amount the school board has to contribute to sustain the program decreases each year.
Hatfield said he isn't sure if the school or the county will apply for more grant funding after this year.
"That's not to say we won't continue it," Hatfield said after the meeting. "We had a three-year grant to cover the implementation and we are in the last year."
In May of next year, the school board will have to decide if the school should continue on in the program. Hatfield wouldn't say if other schools in the county are exploring a possible partnership with New Tech Network.
"It takes a little while to get the full implementation to have some data results and so forth," Hatfield said. "It's something we're continuing to monitor."
Besides Buffalo High School, the only other two schools in West Virginia to participate in New Tech Network programs are Philippi Middle School and Philip Barbour High School.
Reach Jake Jarvis at jake.jarvis@wvgazette.com, 304-348-7905 or follow @NewsroomJake on Twitter.