F-M parents/guardians asked to complete digital equity survey

The following letter was sent to F-M parents/guardians via email:

Dear parents/guardians,

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) is requesting internet and technology information to provide funding for school districts depending on the needs of the families. The ultimate goal is for NYSED to provide funding to those districts where families do not have ample and robust internet access. They also ask about readily available devices that are used from home.

As a result, NYSED is asking for families to answer the Digital Equity Survey found when logging into SchoolTool. You no longer have to fill this out for each child as your answers will populate to all of your children.

If you have not installed the SchoolTool app, you can follow the directions below.

Laurel Chiesa
Director of Instructional Technology

Directions for completing the survey on the SchoolTool website

1. Log into the SchoolTool website . Your username is the email you provided F-M. If you still cannot log in, call 315-692-1969.
2. Select the icon next to the student’s photograph.
3. Select the “User Defined” tab.
4. Select the plus symbol next to “NYS Digital Access Survey.”
5. Fill out the survey.
6. Select SAVE for each student.

Survey Notes/ Help

• Question #1 – Select “Yes” even if your child declined a device.
• Question # 2 – Grades K-1 uses an iPad, grades 2-12 uses a Chromebook.
• Question # 3 – If your child does not use the iPad or Chromebook provided by the school when at home, select personal or none.

Directions for completing the survey on the SchoolTool app

1. You will see an indicator of the total number of forms that are due (“due” means Forms that have been assigned, but not yet submitted). This number represents the total number of “blank” Forms across all students for whom you have Parent Portal rights.
2. To submit Forms responses, tap on the Forms panel. You’ll see a list of Forms that are currently assigned to your students. If a Form is only assigned to one student, you’ll see that student’s name. If the same form is signed to multiple students, you’ll see all of their names listed in a dropdown.
3. If responses have already been submitted for a student, that student’s name will be displayed in blue, while students whose forms are still due are displayed in red.
4. Tap on a student’s name under the Form you want to complete. You can submit the same answers for multiple students in a single operation. It doesn’t matter which student you start with; you’ll be prompted to select additional students before you submit your response.
5. The NYS Digital Access Survey consists of nine questions. You must select an answer from the dropdown for each question in order to complete your response.
6. Complete the form as appropriate and click “SAVE & CONTINUE” in the bottom right.
7. If the form was assigned to multiple students, you can select the other students here to submit identical responses for each student. Choose the student(s) for whom you wish to submit responses and confirm the submission.
8. Once the response has been saved, you’ll see a confirmation message.
9. If you need to change your responses, you can click on the Forms panel and repeat the steps above to re-submit your answers.