Phase two of the Mehlville School District’s One-to-One Open-Source Pilot Program will cost roughly $171,000 less than the $600,000 budgeted for the program.

The program, which will cost $428,510, allows one laptop per student rather than textbooks. Seven Mehlville Senior High teachers and eight Oakville Senior High teachers from communication arts, math, science and social studies departments will participate in phase two on a volunteer basis.

Each high school will have 15 sections of one-to-one classes, with roughly 272 students at Mehlville Senior High and 275 students at Oakville Senior High.

One additional technician is expected to be hired for the “duration of the one-to-one pilot,” according to information Superintendent Eric Knost provided to the board. The $50,000 salary for the additional technician is not included in program costs and will be funded through budget reductions, part of which include savings generated through renewing the district’s contract with Charter Communications. The five-year Charter contract will save the district more than $100,000 per year.

Director of Information Technology Services Steven Lee said the technician will be “100 percent” involved with the pilot program, and there are plans to create a help desk for the technician, who will rotate between the high schools.

“When (the new technician is) not there, I’m going to backfill with current technicians … Right now, our plan is to identify a place to have a little repair depot where students can come for help,” Lee told the board.

Board member Rich Franz asked if it is safe to assume the laptops will require software upgrades if the district plans to keep the devices for at least four years.

Lee said he does not anticipate changing the makeup of the laptops.

“There’s not a lot of specialized software,” he said. “We’re looking for materials on the Internet. Just browsers are updated. We don’t really need to update the operating system of the laptop.”

As the pilot program continues, board member Mark Stoner said the district should look at what kind of rubric will evaluate the pilot’s “overall success,” including using components of the board’s technology goal.

The board’s technology goal states, “Technology will be part of the educational strategy to accommodate flexibility of instructional times, curriculum content, learning styles, CSIP (Comprehensive School Improvement Plan) and the goal of academic excellence with an effort to remain revenue neutral and to support the goal of long-term cost reduction.”

The goal for the pilot, according to Stoner, would be to identify long-term cost reductions and how the district would monitor those reductions.

Similar to how the initial pilot phase was measured, Knost said the following items will be considered: student engagement, student achievement and student attendance.

“I think that we’re hearing some remarkable changes in interest in class based upon these kids and their ability to have technology in the classroom,” Knost said. “And one of the things that Editure, the (professional development company) … will help us with is to formalize those goals into workable pieces and to consider the metrics we will use to determine successes in those areas.”

Editure Professional Development was unanimously chosen by the district’s one-to-one committee for the professional development, or PD, component of the pilot. The PD will cost $25,900 for 60 teachers, according to Connie Hurst-Bayless, assistant superintendent of curriculum.

Funding for PD comes from Title II grant money, which the district receives from the federal government to use to improve teacher quality, not district funds.

Students in the first phase of the pilot program will continue to their sophomore year with the laptops.