Maryville City Schools
Delivers Technology Access
at a Massive Scale
As eighth-grade students arrive in Scotty Hicks’ classroom at Maryville Junior High, they each pick up an
assigned laptop and move to their desks.
They know the routine. Students log into the online learning management system, find their daily work, and
get to it. They see notes to go over during the lesson, and a type of activity to complete. When the lesson
begins, kids still have their laptops in front of them. They can submit work on paper or digitally – their choice.
Meanwhile, a stack of social studies textbooks sits in the classroom, unused. The 2014-2015 school year
would normally have seen the adoption of new social studies textbooks, but Mr. Hicks is working with new
laptops instead of books. He kept a classroom set around as a sort of Plan B, in case mechanical glitches
arose. But they haven’t been cracked open all year.
“Now we have the whole Internet as a resource,” Mr. Hicks said. “We don’t just cover material. We really focus
on learning. That’s what this digital world gives to us – more ways to intervene and respond.”
Mr. Hicks is part of the opening phase of iReach, a massive district-wide effort at SCORE Prize Finalist district Maryville City Schools (MCS) to place an electronic device in the hands of every student. This year, 30
percent of MCS staff teach in classrooms with 1:1 student-to-device ratios. Next year, all students in grades
PreK-3 will have classroom iPads, and students in grades 4-12 will receive laptops to use at school and take
home each afternoon.
Deployment of technology at this scale is the best way to shape twenty-first century learners and deliver
limitless learning opportunities, according to MCS Director of Schools Dr. Mike Winstead.
“The least amount of technology that kids encounter in their days is in school,” Dr. Winstead said. “Instead of
making them conform to our world, let’s change the classroom to conform to theirs.”
MCS, which won the 2011 SCORE Prize and has been a finalist twice before, is already a high academic
performer with a statewide reputation for strong schools and community support. The district of over 5,000
students has an average ACT score of 23.6 and an AP exam pass rate of 80 percent. MCS is a district committed to continual improvement, as demonstrated by continued strong three-year TVAAS growth, particularly
in math and Algebra I and II.
Optimizing the use of technology for instruction is one MCS strategy to continue moving from good to great,
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