W-JCC schools establish focus group to study technology use

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A focus group will start work next week on a plan for how to best use technology in Williamsburg-James City County schools, Superintendent Daniel Keever told the school board Tuesday.

The group will include parents, teachers and community members, Keever said.

“Our goal is to promote skills before tools, ensuring technology enhances critical thinking, collaboration, and meaningful learning.,” Keever said.

The announcement comes after more than a month of complaints from parents worried about excessive computer use in the schools. A petition signed by 120 parents asked the school board to rethink technology use, especially among younger children.

Two of the parents who signed the petition were placed on the focus group, one of them told us.

Claudia Kessel, mother of a Matthew Whaley Elementary School student, said the group received a substantial amount of reading material to prepare for the first meeting next Tuesday.

Keever did not provide much detail about how the focus group would work, saying it would conduct two meetings. The group will first establish guidelines for how to use technology in schools, then recommend implementation.

At the school board’s meeting Tuesday, Keever highlighted a week-long artificial intelligence camp hosted by the school system at James Blair Middle School last week to explore the use of generative AI in work settings.

Students attending the program, aimed at rising 8th graders, used the technology to develop a five-minute-long play from scratch, develop a business plan and create a web site.

School Chair Andrea M. Donnor said using AI was an expectation in her workplace, and will be required of students when they graduate.

Donnor said the school system needs to train students on “the world that our kids are walking into, where they’re going to be expected to know how to use AI to do their jobs.”

Donnor said the school system should “start to get them access to it and (let them) train on it while they’re here with us, and the good practices around it.”

In other items during the meeting, Keever said the new Army JROTC program at the schools had attracted “outstanding” student interest, and he expects 120 students to enroll.

He said the school system has hired an experienced senior Army instructor who will lead the program to “build a strong culture of leadership, service, and citizenship.”