TIPS Volume 3, No. 1
September, 2002

     Grade Level Key 
     = Elem,  = Middle
     = High, = Teachers

The Fayette County Video-Linked Clasroom.

It's here! The classroom of the future! Through the miracle of video conferencing, Lafayette and Tates Creek High Schools share a classroom, and the result is that four Tates Creek High School students are taking Calculus II from Lafayette's math teacher Judi Day right along with her Lafayette students!

Welcome to the Fayette County Video-Linked Classroom, an initiative that allows schools to offer classes that wouldn't ordinarily be offered due to low enrollment combined with heavy class size and staff-utilization pressures. Lafayette and Tates Creek join Henry Clay and Bryan Station High this year in this expanding initiative. 

Judi Day's Calculus II class takes place in her classroom, and, simultaneously, through video-conferencing, at Tates Creek High School. An additional two students (one each from the two schools) are taking the class on taped delay. 

The existence of this new initiative is the result of the hard work of Ms. Day, Rebecca Wood at Tates Creek (who identified  students at Tates Creek and volunteered a planning period to help with the program), LAN Service Technicians Joseph Wethington (Lafayette) and Brandon Wade (Tates Creek), Tates Creek librarian Diane Culbertson (who handles the videotapes), principals Mike McKenzie (Lafayette) and Bob Gardner (Tates Creek), and Terry Wicker of the Office of Technology.

As high schools struggle to offer electives and Advanced Placement courses for students under increased staffing pressures, and the newness and strangeness of the idea wears off, the program is destined to expand - and there are four students at Tates Creek who will be happy to tell you why!