The Lauderdale County School District Board of Education has approved the use of the company Glimpse for the rest of the school year at a prorated cost in an effort to track the effectiveness of its spending in a variety of areas related to instruction.

“They analyze information from your district to be able to tell you whether you’re getting the bang for your buck,” said Cheryl Thomas, the district’s curriculum director for grades five through 12 and the professional development director, speaking to the school board during a meeting on Tuesday.

George Hedgepeth, the district’s director of finance, said the prorated cost to use the service for the rest of the school year will be $40,500, with no commitment to continue.

“This is coming from reserves that we had in the budget,” Hedgepeth told the board, adding that the money “would possibly have to come from fund balance at the end of the year.”

Hedgepeth also explained some of the areas that Glimpse would examine.

“Their main focus is going to be instruction,” Hedgepeth said. “They’re looking at the investment we’re putting into software, to books, to curriculum, to professional development — is it impacting our students on a regular basis? They’re able to show that.”

“I appreciate that it’s something we need to look at,” Board President Barbara Jones said. “It just seems like an expensive thing for one semester.”

Hedgepeth noted the overall expenses of the areas Glimpse would examine as he explained why he believed the money would be well-spent.

“We did a study,” Hedgepeth said. “We spend close to $575,000 a year in these areas.”

After the meeting, Thomas said recent budget cuts make this sort of examination particularly important.

“We’ve gone through budget cuts,” she said. “Everybody has in the state. We’re always looking to optimize the money that we have and make sure that it’s being spent wisely and that it’s going to have a positive effect on student achievement.”

She mentioned the examination of programs such as iReady, an online tool that allows students to hone their math and English Language Arts skills.

“We have every grade, K through eight, in math and language arts, using iReady,” she said. “We want data to show whether in every grade, at every school, we’re getting results, positive results from that program.”

Thomas said the district might learn not only whether to retain certain programs, but also how to “tweak the use” of programs to make them more effective. She also described the complicated array of factors that need to be examined to understand such effectiveness.

“This company is being paid to analyze all of the data,” she said. “They’re going to look at how much money went into technology and how many computers (the schools) have. They look at scheduling issues. They look at all those factors that affect the usage and effectiveness of programs.”

On the Net:

www.glimpsek12.com/