Join Campus Community TODAY!

The Campus Community provides all Campus users with single sign-on access from Infinite Campus directly to:

• Knowledge Base - Online product information, updated with each release
• Campus Forums - Connect with other Campus users
• Customer Events Calendar - Learn about upcoming events and user group sessions
• Surveys - Share your opinion and feedback
• Campus News - Find out more about Infinite Campus, customers, and industry information
• Campus Passport - Provides training opportunities for all districts

Click the Community icon in your upper right navigation panel and register. 

Create your Campus Community account TODAY and discover the infinite possibilities!

Messenger 2.0 - Have you MOVED your messages?

This is a reminder that Message Builder will be deprecated at the end of October 2025. After this date, any messages saved in Message Builder will no longer be accessible.

What You Need to Do:

If you have saved messages in Message Builder that you want to keep, they must be recreated in Messenger 2.0 before the end of October 2025. This is the only way to ensure your templates and communications are preserved.

Why This Matters:

Saved messages in Message Builder will not transfer automatically to Messenger 2.0.

After the deprecation date, you will lose access to any content that hasn't been manually recreated.

We strongly encourage all users to review their saved messages as soon as possible and begin transitioning to Messenger 2.0.

Thank you for taking prompt action to ensure a smooth transition.

Opening Day Authentic Learning Update

On Opening Day for 2025–26, we kicked off our journey into Authentic Learning across Barrington 220. Thank you to everyone who brought energy, ideas, and curiosity to the first session!

Participants accessed the Authentic Learning course in Schoology, where they:

1. Listened to an introduction to Authentic Learning.
2. Completed Phase 1, which used Brisk Boost to guide learning.

In Phase 1, participants demonstrated their understanding of the district’s definition of Authentic Learning by identifying its key components in both hypothetical lesson ideas and actual videos from Barrington 220 classrooms.

If you completed Session 1 on Opening Day, thank you! You’re ready for Phase 2 coming later this Fall.

If you didn’t get the chance, you can access the course using this Join Code: 6FDS-PHDK-SCNMH

You can start by clicking through and reading Authentic Learning Phase 1, the Google Slides document in Framework 220 Authentic Learning, and then move on to the two Defining Authentic Learning AI-guided activities.

For each activity, click the square+arrow icon in the top-right corner before getting started. Please be sure to enter your first and last name to record your progress.

Click Allow cookies to proceed.

Please follow the directions on the first slide. The arrows in the bottom-left allow you to navigate between slides. The text box on the right is where you can type in your responses to the Brisk Boost chat.

As you meet the lesson objectives (outlined in the top right), you will see an increasing amount of green filling the Lesson Objectives progress bar. Once you complete each task, close the window, and your progress will be saved.

The upcoming sessions will build on this foundation and include moving from defining Authentic Learning to applying it in your classrooms and teams.

If you have any questions, please email me, jjrobinson@barrington220.org

"Let's Try It!" Brisk Next Beta

"Let's Try It!" If you know about an innovative instructional practice, structure, or tool and you'd like to give it a try, let us know! We hope to continue to sow grassroots innovation by providing support for ideas—like NotebookLM and Snorkl last school year.

In Barrington 220, we’re exploring how AI can support learning and teaching in ways that align with our strategic plan. Three years ago, teachers began using Brisk Teaching, a tool that empowers teachers to give AI-created timely, meaningful feedback to students that is aligned to state standards and follows a teacher-created prompt. Brisk continued to evolve, and last year teachers began setting up students to use Brisk Student Boost to allow students to control the timing of the feedback they received. We adopted Brisk Student Boost as part of the first Authentic Learning sessions at Opening Day 25–26.

Recently, Brisk announced Brisk Next. Think of Brisk Next as your AI co-teacher, designed to streamline planning and open up space for more student-centered learning.

With Brisk Next you can:

• Start from a lesson plan, a standard, or just an idea.
• Generate class materials, student activities, and quick assessments.
• Bundle resources into collections to assign or share.
• Use Boost Activities to see exactly what students will experience—and track their progress.

"Try it!" here: Brisk Next and follow the steps here: Getting Started Guide

Who's next?

To get started or propose your own "Let's Try It!" idea, please email me at jjrobinson@barrington220.org.

Let's try it!

Guest Author Feature: Are students more likely to believe a TikTok than their textbook?

Submitted by Nancy McFadden, Barrington High School Teacher Librarian

Information overload is a daily occurrence for our students. How do we help them sort through the noise and learn to be more discerning about the information they absorb? While students are likely to judge the trustworthiness of a TikTok or YouTube video based on the number of likes or views, we want to push our students to be more thoughtful in how they evaluate a source. Media literacy skills emphasize the concept that all messages are created with a purpose and that the medium containing that message is important to understand its meaning.

To begin, we need to help students understand the difference between three kinds of misinformation. These differences are primarily based on the intention or motivation of the creator.

Misinformation is false information that is inadvertently spread—the intent is not to deceive; it's simply a mistake. In contrast, disinformation is false information that is deliberately created and shared in order to influence or obscure the truth. Finally, malinformation refers to false information that is specifically designed and shared with the intent to cause harm.

To deepen students' understanding, this topic can be paired with a quick Social Emotional Learning (SEL) lesson on recognizing our emotions. False information often aims to trigger strong emotional responses, which can short-circuit our ability to think critically. By teaching students to recognize these emotional cues, we can train them to pause, ask critical questions, and analyze information through a more reflective and informed lens.

One practical strategy for analyzing information is a technique used by professional fact-checkers called lateral reading. This digital literacy skill helps identify misinformation by prompting students to ask one essential question: Who created this content, and why? Unlike traditional vertical reading—where we evaluate a website by scrolling through it and looking for clues—we encourage students to leave the site entirely, open a new tab, and investigate what other reliable sources say about it. This shift in approach helps them better understand the context, credibility, and potential bias behind the original source.  Students can ask any or all of these questions: Who created this? What is the evidence? What do other sources say? What is the author’s intention?

To accomplish all of this, a terrific source for teachers to know about is the News Literacy Project’s Daily Do Now slide deck. This is a weekly collection of bellringers to increase student awareness of different aspects of digital manipulation. See which one makes you stop and think and then try it with your students.

When we equip students with the tools to navigate misinformation, we’re not just teaching media literacy—we're fostering resilient, independent thinkers.

To find more ways to embed Digital/Media Literacy, team up with your teacher librarian to co-teach media literacy lessons that help support critical thinking skills and balanced research strategies.

*Some phrasing in this article was assisted by OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Key's Quick Tips - New iPad = New AT App Request

After you and your students receive your new iPads, please note the following:

App Requests

If a student with an IEP or 504 plan requires an app that is not available in Self Service, you will need to submit a new app request using the form below. This applies even if the app was previously requested and available on the old iPads.

bit.ly/220ATapps

Accomodations

You will also need to re-enable any accessibility features or accommodations your students previously had on their iPads. Examples include:

• Turning on text-to-speech
• Installing and logging into the Co: Writer add-on keyboard 
• Adding accessibility keyboards or other tools

Directions and video tutorials can be found here: AT Features and Set up Instructions

Important Note

Communication iPads and large-vision iPads provided directly by me will not be replaced. No action is needed for those devices.

Coming Soon

We will soon be rolling out a new app that will replace Co: Writer, Snap & Read, and Grammarly. More information to come!

The Role of AI in Opening Day 2025–26

Welcome back, everyone! On our 2025–26 Opening Day for staff, the Barrington 220 Executive Council was pleased to present Opening Day Live (ODL), a Saturday Night Live (SNL) themed production that we created to introduce our district’s educational themes for the year: authentic learning, culture, and our new hashtag theme, #BReal. Like SNL, we also riffed on current and relevant topics including, but not limited to, our student device guidelines (B Here. B Now. B Engaged.), our SEL curriculum, general back-to-school sentiments, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

Before a brief exploration of our use of AI in this production, I’d like to specifically thank the amazing staff who served in writer, director, and leadership roles in the production: Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director; Mark Domanico, Opening Day Live Band Leader; Brandon Pemberton, Choir Conductor; and Brigid Tileston, our Coordinating Producer. I have also included the full production credits below in case you missed the scrolling credits at the end of the ODL production.

If you have been in Barrington 220 for at least a couple of school years, you may remember that last year, we created an original mini-musical using AI as a “creative partner” that we performed during Opening Day. That entire process taught us that AI was a high-quality tool, but that it did not replace “human intelligence.” For example, we found that AI worked well for generating an initial working story and script, but the script needed to be heavily edited and rewritten. The dialog, in particular, needed the most help to sound more human. Last year we also attempted to use AI for composing music and creating choreography, but we abandoned AI's use entirely when we found that the AI tools of the time did neither of those things well. However, we did find that AI-generated lyrics provided a good starting point for our songwriters, but they also required significant human rewriting in all three of the songs. 

This year, we had similar experiences, but found a few new uses for AI and saw AI improve in a few areas. Since our production this year consisted of several derivative works/parodies of known SNL characters and scenarios, we were able to use AI to help us create initial scripts. However, the scripts needed considerable rewrites to make the dialog believable and to improve the jokes and humor. In fact, as we saw last year, the more our students and staff actors rehearsed, the more the scripts were improved through improvisation and suggestions by the performers.

Of course, the amazing Opening Day Live Staff Band and Barrington High School and Staff Choirs delivered phenomenal live performances without any AI assistance. However, the opening theme song to the “Dougie Downer” sketch was “composed and performed” by AI. 

For the "Dougie Downer" 20-second opening, the AI music creation tool Suno was used with considerable trial and error. First, I felt that the lyrics generated by Suno were not optimal so I attempted to write them with the help of ChatGPT. After 20 or more attempts, I abandoned ChatGPT and wrote them myself. The writing process using ChatGPT was likely valuable to help me generate ideas along the way, but the AI-generated lyrics never had a structure that seemed to work. The ability to add original lyrics to Suno is a new feature since last year so I was able to paste my original lyrics into this tool and then add descriptors about the style I wanted. This process took 12 iterations to arrive at the theme song heard on Opening Day. At the end of that project, I’m not sure I saved any time using AI, but the 20-second song sounded very impressive and matched my description: “1950s TV theme style, 120BPM, major key, happy, bouncy, harmonized female singers, 20 seconds.” 

AI was also used for other specific tasks including:

• Assisted in removing backgrounds from photos used in the “Dougie Downer” sketch opening.
• Generated background text for the Opening Day Update sketch opening.
• Generated the brick background image used along with the ODL logo.
• Generated the intentionally bad A.I. classroom image used in the Opening Day Update sketch.
• Generated the AI Robot animations (using Apple Memoji) for the Opening Day Update sketch.
• Assisted in creating general communication and organizational materials for the production. 

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumor that AI is poised to take over the world is greatly exaggerated—at least in the context of this production. 

From the beginning of the rise of AI tools in the last few years, we have taken a proactive approach here in Barrington 220. While many other school districts went on an AI-banning spree—or worse, decided to ignore AI—we created a staff task force to draft AI guidelines and tested several AI tools, both for staff and student use. We continue to find through our various trials that AI can be very helpful as a tool in certain circumstances under certain conditions, but it is currently not ready to replace humans.

As promised, here is the full list of credits for Opening Day Live on August 18, 2025. You will only find a list of humans here. For this production, I could not bring myself to credit AI any more than I would credit my SUV for helping me get to the production on that morning. 

Barrington 220 Opening Day Live 25/26

Cast, Creatives, & Crew

“Coach Ricky vs. AI”

Josh P., Coach Ricky Rawlins 

Brin F., Mrs. Bell

Maymuna M., Student 

Aspen R., Student

Ruhi Sh., Student

Logan T., Student

Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director

Opening Credits Sequence

Produced by BHS-TV

Aidan K., Director & Camera Operator 

Julia S., Co-Director & Editor 

Peter C., PA

Kevin H., PA

Dr. Jeff Doles, Teacher

John Roncone, Announcer

Opening Monologue & Message

Dr. Craig Winkleman, Superintendent

Tim Maguire, Authentic Audience Member

Brandon Duke, Authentic Audience Member

Amy Suessen, BEA President

Shawndra Shelton, BSEO President

“Together Two Twenty” Video

Eric Steckling, Producer & Editor

“Dougie Downer”

Doug Connell, Dougie Downer

Jenny Shannon, Staff Member

Shawndra Shelton, Staff Member

Erica Ward, Staff Member

Kevin Krivosik, Trombone

Doug James, Voiceover Artist

Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director

“Bronco Cheerleaders” Video

Amy Winkelman

Craig Winkelman

Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director

“Opening Day Update”

Nicki Gavin

Brad Gillette

Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director

“Learning 1980s Style” Video

Aspen R., Student 1

Brin F., Student 2

Josh P., Student 3

Ruhi S., Student 4

Written & Produced by BHS-TV

Aidan K., Director & Camera Operator 

Julia S., Co-Director & Editor 

Peter C., PA

Kevin H., PA

Dr. Jeff Doles, Teacher

Barrington 220 Choirs

Brandon Pemberton, Conductor

Ryan Palmer, Piano

Mark Domanico, Percussion

Barrington High School Choir

Sam B.

Ashley C.

Matias C.

Jayden C.

Lilah D.

Camryn F.

Ethan G.

Tilly H.

Ella H.

James J.

Eli L.

Ethan M.

Daniel M.

Mariana N.

Joshua P.

Aspen R.

Adrian R.

Maggie S.

Barrington 220 Staff Choir

Janet Blake

Riley Cook

Erin Donahue

Mike Duggan

Emily Durham

Lori Ford

Nicki Gavin

Kelly Haradon

Katie Hildebrand

Erin Kirby

Noemi Lara

Cat Lasky

Erin Lindsey

Amy Lovi

Tim Maguire

Diana McKee

Laura Minerva

Kate Moody

Katie Muhtaris

Nazarii Mykhailenko

Mike Nelson

Natalie Pollack

Kaitlin Popovich

Nancy Reed

Alison Rohrbach

Tom Root

Abby Schaub

Ben Sorce

Karen Tischhauser

Kateri Tumminello

BTP Candles Video

Junior H., Student

Ken Hoving, Special Education Teacher, BTP

Live Production Crew

Josie S., Prop Construction/Stagehand

Raaniya A., Stagehand

Jake M., Stagehand

Maymuna M., Stagehand

Aidan K., Camera Operator 

Peter C., Camera Operator

Opening Day Live Band

Mark Domanico, Band Leader & Bass/Guitar/Keyboards

Garrett Luczak, Bass/Guitar/Keyboards

Hector Ontiveros, Drums

Josh Beatty, Tenor Sax

Janet Blake, Vocals

Chelsea Hedges, Vocals

Alison Rohrbach, Vocals

Jeff Simon, Vocals

Jeremy Wemhoff, Vocals/Guitar

Special Thanks

Barrington High School Bands, Kevin Krivosik, Director

Barrington 220 Staff Interviewed for the Together Two Twenty video

Barrington Historical Society

Susan Buerckholtz

Willow Creek Production Staff

Brigid Tileston, Coordinating Producer

YES to LEARNING in IC!

We’re excited to announce the return of the Yearly Event Series (YES)—your go-to resource for timely, targeted learning for all modules of IC.

YES includes timely instruction on a wide array of Infinite Campus topics that will easily save staff hundreds of hours during the school year! Whether you're new to the system or a seasoned user, these sessions offer practical tools and strategies to improve your workflow and efficiency.

Our first session will be

Adventures in Ad Hoc and Core Reporting

September 16 & 17, 2025

This session will explore the ins and outs of ad hoc and core reporting—canned reports for attendance, behavior and health and helpful tips for creating and using ad hoc reporting. Expect useful takeaways, real-life examples, and time-saving tips.

The session schedule will be emailed out once it becomes available, for now SAVE THE DATE!

Keep an eye out for future YES sessions. We look forward to kicking off another great year of learning with you!

Say YES to learning!

Need Interpretation or Translation Services? We can help!

Welcome to the 2025–2026 school year! As you plan for meetings, events, or family communications, remember that the Barrington 220 Interpretation & Translation Team is here to help make every interaction clear and accessible.

Whether you need in-person support, help with phone or Zoom calls, or documents translated, the process is simple and streamlined:

1. Submit a Request

Fill out our quick and easy Interpretation & Translation Request Form—or visit the Barrington 220 website. After logging in under the Staff tab, look for Interpretation & Translation Request.

2. Provide Details

Upload documents for translation or share the date, time, and details of your event so we can match you with the right interpreter.

3. Plan Ahead

Document translations: Allow 5–10 business days.

Interpreter requests for meetings/events: Submit at least 10 days in advance for the best chance of securing support.

Note: Last-minute requests will be handled as best as possible, but availability may be limited.

For any questions or special situations, contact:
📧 Hector Ontiveros – hontiveros@barrington220.org

AI Task Force Next Steps - JOIN US!

In the 2025–26 school year, we plan to focus on deepening Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills among students. We plan to introduce lessons and experiences that teach students and support teachers on how to use AI effectively, learn with the support of AI tools, and validate information from AI resources critically. Students will learn not only how to engage with AI, but how to do so thoughtfully, ethically, and responsibly.

We plan to focus on skills such as:

• prompt engineering—communicate clearly with AI
• lateral learning—use AI as a learning assistant
• critical evaluation—detect bias, misinformation, or incomplete reasoning in AI use

The spectrum of AI tools available in education is evolving rapidly. In Barrington 220, we are committed to continuous evaluation and adaptability, ensuring that our instructional practices, professional learning offerings, and AI tool selections reflect the latest research, emerging technologies, and best practices. By remaining flexible and reflective, we can continue to lead in preparing students for a future shaped by innovation—a core cultural value in Barrington 220.

Through the next phases, we will continue to lead with intention, preparing students not just to succeed with Artificial Intelligence, but also with their Human Intelligence.

If this interests you and you'd like to help create opportunities and supports for developing these skills using AI, please email Joe Robinson (jjrobinson@barrington220.org) to join our AI Task Force.

This video provides an addendum to our focus on AI in education.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH3npL4WTDM&list=WL&index=39

Registration for 2025-26 School Year is OPEN!

Online Registration for the 2025-26 school year opened on Thursday, May 1, 2025, at 10 a.m.! Families planning to attend Barrington 220 Schools in August need to register and update student and family demographic information before May 31, 2025. Students cannot be officially registered for the 2025-26 school year until Online Registration is completed.

If you are a Barrington 220 parent, the registration link will be in your Infinite Campus Parent Portal account. Once logged in, refer to the left side of the page, and click to select the More option. Once the list expands, click to select the Online Registration option.

Parents are asked to update contact information, medical information, and answer all required annual parent permission questions. Once you SUBMIT and our staff reviews your registration documents, a confirming email will be sent. Please allow 5-7 business days for an email confirmation to arrive.

Little Broncos Registration Is Paperless for 2025-26

We are excited to announce that beginning the 2025-26 School Year, Little Broncos parents/guardians will be participating in Online Registration via Infinite Campus. 

Please provide feedback regarding your registration experience to registration@barrington220.org.

Collaboration in Apple Apps is Coming Soon!

Starting soon, students and staff will be able to collaborate in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote to boost creativity and multimodal literacy, using new Managed Apple IDs!

Managed Apple IDs also include

• 200 GB of iCloud storage
• easier sharing of Apple documents between staff and students
• and more secure data privacy.

Last week, some staff/students received an email from Apple with an important action item. 

Please read the directions below carefully and use the steps below.

August Camps, Meet School Store

The Barrington 220 Student Information System (SIS) team, in collaboration with the August Camps Administrators, is excited to announce the launch of a pilot program that introduces a new way for families to register for August camps. Beginning May 1, 2025, registration for August Camps will be available directly through the School Store in Infinite Campus, offering a more streamlined and convenient experience for parents.

This pilot is designed to simplify the registration process by integrating it into the Infinite Campus Parent Portal—where families already access grades, attendance, and other student information. By using the School Store feature, parents will be able to view camp offerings, select sessions, and complete payments—all within one familiar platform.

The SIS team and August Camps Administrators will be closely monitoring this pilot to gather feedback and assess the effectiveness of the new system. If successful, this approach may be expanded to additional programs in the future. Families interested in registering for August Camps should log in to their Infinite Campus Parent Portal and visit the School Store to get started.

Decrease the Google Docs Tools After Using Command + to Enlarge

Some Mac "power users" have learned various keyboard shortcuts over the years to save time and make everyday tasks more efficient. However, a few users have observed that one common shortcut sometimes goes awry in the Safari web browser: using the command + shortcut to make the Google Docs view bigger, and command - to make the view smaller. (Technically, the "make larger" command uses the = key that shares the + key, but most users remember these shortcuts as command - and command + .)

Occasionally, when using command +, the Google toolbar stays HUGE on the screen and only the document window gets smaller when using command - to make the view smaller:

After a great deal of searching, trial, and error, we discovered that the secret to returning the tools to normal is to add the shift key to the shortcut:

shift command -

This key combination will make the entire screen, tools and document window, "zoom" smaller. Please note that you may occasionally need to close Safari and reopen it to make this shortcut work properly.

Key's Quick Tips - Options for Word Prediction in the iOS Keyboard

Key's quick tips are provided by Kelly Key, Assistive Technology Coordinator for Barrington 220.

Have you seen the words that appear above the iPad keyboard to help you and your students type faster? That’s called word prediction!

Did you know you can customize several features in your iPad settings to make word prediction even more helpful for your students, like having the iPad read the suggested words aloud before selecting one?

Explore this and other powerful word prediction options below to better support your students' writing!

Hold to Speak Predictions

Open the Settings app on iPad and navigate through the following settings:

Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content  > Typing Feedback > Hold to Speak Predictions > Turn on Speak Words > Turn on 

 
This feature will allow the student to press a word in the prediction bar and hear it out loud. It will also say each word out loud when the student types. Many students have shared that this keeps their attention on their writing task and also helps them catch errors while writing. 

Change the Predictions to Grammatical Predictions with Additional Choices

Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Assistive Touch > [scroll all the way down] Extended Predictions

Alternate Add-on Keyboard - Co:Writer

Do you have a student who needs a keyboard with additional choices and phonetic spelling support? Check out the Co:Writer add-on keyboard! Click here for directions and see the video demo below!



Please reach out to me if you have any questions or need additional support!
kkey@barrington220.org

Did You Know About This? Tips That Could Change Your Life!

Have you ever accidentally closed a Chrome window and lost a deeply organized set of tabs? 

Do you create Google Slides presentations with sloppy screenshots that include ugly borders from your screen? 

Have you pasted text from another source and created a Franken‑fonted document? 

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, we have solutions for you—today!

Chrome’s "Where‑Did‑My‑Window‑Go?" Undo

1. Open a new window, then click History.
2. Navigate to Recently Closed and select Restore All Tabs.

Fix Sloppy Screenshots with Masks

1. Double‑click any image → an instant crop mask appears.
2. Drag the black handles to refocus or swap shapes (arrow ▼ next to the crop icon) for circles, stars, or other shapes.
3. Hit return to lock the mask. No extra menus, no right‑click hunt.

Paste and Match Style (No More "Franken‑Fonts")

1. Press and hold: shift+option+command and simultaneously press V

[I find it helpful to place my left pinky finger on shift, my left middle finger on option, my left index finger on command and press the V with my right index finger.]

If you know another helpful tip, please let us know. Any shared tips we include in future blog posts will be credited to you! You'll be a published blog contributor!

AI Task Force Update - Student-Facing AI Tools for TODAY!

This year, our AI (Artificial Intelligence) Task Force—made up of Grades 3–12 teachers, instructional coaches, building leaders, and district staff—has been exploring student-facing AI tools that pair well with Brisk, our teacher-facing AI tool.

After months of research, pilots, and conversations, we’re excited to introduce two tools we believe have real potential to improve teaching and learning. All staff and students can access both tools TODAY!

🤿 Snorkl

Snorkl helps students get real-time feedback on their thinking in math and writing. Students write or draw their responses while verbally explaining their thinking, and Snorkl gives instant, standards-aligned feedback on what’s working and where to revise. Teachers can guide the process and review student progress, but students stay in the driver’s seat—reflecting, revising, and improving at their own pace and with as many tries as it takes.

You can learn more about Snorkl, including how to get started, here.

🤖 Brisk for Students

Brisk for Students builds upon the existing teacher-facing tools found in the Brisk Chrome extension to give students in-the-moment support with conventions, organization, clarity, and more in their writing. It’s like a coach sitting beside them, offering nudges and suggestions as they write. Teachers stay in control of the prompts and feedback focus, aligning it with specific learning goals and gaining visibility into how students use the AI bot for support.

You can learn more about Brisk, including how to get started, here.

We are ready for all staff and students to access these tools next school year in 2025–26. We will continue to explore new AI tools as they emerge and mature. 

Residency Checks Begin in April 2025

The Student Information Services Team will be working on Residency checks in early April 2025. 

Thomson Reuters CLEAR is a software tool that helps the district research and investigate data that has been provided by parents/guardians to the District. This system is used by law enforcement, school districts, and other organizations to prevent fraud. 

Notifications will be sent to families who do not pass the electronic verification process prior to the opening of 2025–26 Online Registration.

Barrington 220 Boundary Map

. 

Barrington 220 Managed Apple IDs

Barrington 220 will soon be providing managed Apple IDs for use by staff and students. Your Apple ID is the key to accessing additional Apple services, especially the Collaboration features among key apps such as Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.

These new Apple IDs will be tied to staff and student district email addresses. We are aware that staff and students have used their Barrington 220 email address to create personal Apple IDs, and Apple has a process to address these situations that we will roll out in the coming weeks.

There are some key differences between managed Apple IDs and personal Apple IDs:

Feature	Personal Apple ID	Managed Apple ID
Who Creates It?	User	School/District Tech Team
iCloud Storage	5GB free (+ paid options)	50GB free
Device Access	Any Apple device	School-managed devices
App Store Purchases	Allowed	Not allowed
Apple Music	Yes	No
Find My Device	Yes	No
Family Sharing	Yes	No
Collaboration	Yes, with iCloud Drive	Yes, within school network
Password Control	User-managed	School-managed

Managed Apple IDs enhance data security, provide centralized app and service management, and enable collaboration for staff and students in Apple apps such as Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.

More details will soon be shared with staff and students regarding our managed Apple IDs, including how staff and students can update their personal Apple ID if it currently uses a district email address.

Stay tuned…

New iPad and MacBook Air Devices Coming Soon!

The Board of Education voted on March 31, 2025, to enter new leases to update Barrington 220’s iPad devices and MacBook Air laptops for staff and students. These devices will continue to support our district’s One to World program that provides iPad devices to all students, allowing access to real-world learning experiences while supporting our mission to empower personal excellence in every learner. The new leases follow the district’s lease cycles established back in 2019 where we keep our iPad devices for 3 years and laptops for 4 years.

Over time, the Tech & Innovation Department has learned that the lease cycles we use represent a “sweet spot” in allowing our students and staff to use current technology, maintain strong asset recovery pricing, and allow the Tech Team to efficiently support a fewer number of devices. Notably:

• Our devices are fully supported by Apple and are able to run the most current operating systems (including mission-critical security updates).
• Students and staff are able to use new hardware-dependent features within a predictable timeframe.
• All students and staff devices have access to the same devices and features.
• Asset recovery (sell-back pricing) has returned approximately 25% of the original device cost back to the district budget when we sell our used devices to third-party services at the end of our leases.

The 2025–26 school year represents the first time in the past decade where both of our major leases (iPad and laptop) are renewed at the same time. While this timing challenges the Tech Team to swap all our devices within a few months, we will provide a detailed plan to complete the implementations soon after the delivery and setup of our new devices. 

The specifications for our new devices are as follows:

iPad

• A16 processor (Generation 11)
• Silver, 11-inch display, Wi-Fi, 128GB storage
• iPad Accessories
• STM Dux Plus Case for iPad A16 (red, includes Logitech Crayon/Apple Pencil storage)
• Logitech Crayon for iPad (USB-C)

MacBook Air

• M4 processor
• Silver, 13.6-inch display
• 10-core CPU/8-core GPU, 16GB unified memory, 256GB SSD storage

"Let's Try It!" Classroom Update - Notebook LM in Grade 3

We introduced “Let’s Try It!” classrooms in this newsletter and blog last month to promote and support environments where students and teachers feel safe to explore and experiment with new ideas.

Grade 3 teacher Michelle Kulwin and instructional coach Jen Parisi jumped right in—trying out Notebook LM, a free tool from Google (currently restricted to staff) that uses AI to help users generate insights, ask questions, and summarize content from connected resources like YouTube videos, Google Docs, etc. It’s designed to support deeper thinking, reflection, and planning.

Michelle and Jen uploaded student essays along with standards and a rubric, then prompted Notebook LM to generate feedback—one essay at a time. With a single click, they used the Audio Overview feature to create 5–6 minute audio tracks for each student group. The tracks feature two AI-generated voices offering detailed, thoughtful commentary on their shared writing. 

💡 What happened next?

• Students locked in.
• They paused, re-listened, and reflected.
• They revised their essays—using the feedback in meaningful ways.

It was a powerful example of how the right tool can deliver timely, meaningful feedback that helps students grow as writers.

Thank you to Michelle Kulwin and Jen Parisi for stepping up to be the first "Let's Try It!" classroom. 

Who's next?

To get started or propose your own "Let's Try It!" classroom idea, please email me at jjrobinson@barrington220.org.

Let's try it!

Technology Support Bits and Bytes

A "bit" is the smallest unit in computing, representing a single binary value, whereas a "byte" comprises 8 bits. In this tech support context, a bit is a single support idea, while a byte includes a few more details to enhance your technology-use experience.

Bit: Reboot Your Computer Often

The longer you go between reboots (restarting your computer), the more likely it is that your computer's OS or a computer application will begin misbehaving. So please, reboot your computer weekly to keep things running smoothly. To reboot, pull down the Apple menu in the upper-left corner of the screen and select Restart...

Bit: Back Up Your Data

You never know when that cup of coffee might end up seeping between the keys on your keyboard and into the delicate circuitry of your laptop making it unusable. Make sure you're keeping your important files on your Google Drive so should you need to recover from such a catastrophe, the pain can be kept to a minimum.

Bit: Update Your Computer

The more often you update your computer, the less time each update takes, so don't procrastinate. Update your computer as soon as a new update becomes available and avoid the annoying reminders—or the dreaded locking of your computer.

Byte: Use Your Browser for Video Conferencing

There are several options for video conferencing—Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex Meetings—just to name a few. Barrington 220 staff are licensed to use Zoom for creating meetings. When you join a Zoom meeting you can use the Zoom client on your computer or iPad since the district offers that software in Self Service and helps you keep it up-to-date. 

When someone else sets up a meeting using one of the other options, you need to use your browser to join the meeting. Please don't try to download software for Teams or Webex, etc.—simply join the meeting in your browser, which is the quickest and easiest way to join. You may continue to use the Zoom client for Zoom meetings.

Infinite Campus Messenger 2.0 Last Call for Training

We will be wrapping up our final trainings on Infinite Campus Messenger 2.0 in April 2025. Please reach out to Linda Ryan, lryan@barrington220.org if you are still in need of training. Access to Messenger 1.0 will end in June 2025 as Campus retires Messenger 1.0. 

  

AI Task Force: You're Invited!

Our AI Task Force, which includes 30+ teachers from Grades 3–12, met last week to finalize their recommendations for student-facing AI tools. We will soon share our plans for adopting a student-facing AI tool in the Fall. Our group tested Brisk, MagicSchool AI, SchoolAI, and Snorkl with students. Professional learning for using student-facing AI tools will begin this summer.

The next steps of the AI Task Force include curating and creating resources for helping our students develop AI literacy skills. AI literacy skills include critical thinking, ethical awareness, adaptability, prompt engineering, and lateral learning to name a few. With teacher-facing and student-facing AI tools available in the Fall, now is a great time for staff to build and strengthen AI literacy skills.

In a recent episode of The Digital Learning Podcast, hosts Holly Clark and Matt Miller highlighted the need for AI literacy skills. They discussed the ACE Framework they've developed: Awareness, Critique, and Exploration.

As a school leader, I use lateral learning with AI all the time. In a recent LETRS for Administrators meeting, we reviewed information spanning the Reading Rope, Science of Reading, Structured Literacy, and other concepts. Although I felt I knew the basics, I wanted more details. I used ChatGPT to provide summaries to complement my knowledge so I could learn laterally during the training. 

If you're interested in this work, please email me (jjrobinson@barrington220.org) to join the AI Task Force.