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Austintown schools receive technology dollars from Drund
By Robert Connelly
AUSTINTOWN
The Austintown school district received a $10,000 check Monday from officials of Drund for implementing its private social-media platform to engage with students and their families.
Mariel Sallee, the school district’s director of 21st-century learning, said the check is “rewarding those people that made [Drund] a great success.”
Sallee, in his first year with the district, said the student newspaper and community television groups helped lead the effort in getting Drund to be used more by the community.
“Talon (the paper) and ACTV were very instrumental in getting Drund running. They’ve kept it relevant,” Sallee said.
The check was presented in a ceremony at Austintown Elementary. Representatives from Drund; local sponsors Seeley Medical, Hill, Barth & King LLC, Nadler Nadler & Burdman Co, LPA; and state Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, along with Austintown and Mahoning County Educational Service Center officials were on hand.
Drund calls itself “a completely private mobile application used to increase communication between schools, parents, teachers and students in a centralized location featuring push technology.”
Drund is run by Azork Ltd., 945 Boardman-Canfield Road in Boardman.
Austintown was the first district in the area to implement the program, but other districts in the Mahoning Valley have begun to use it.
Renee English, supervisor of community engagement with MCESC, said Boardman, Canfield, Struthers, Jackson-Milton and Mahoning County Career and Technical Center schools are all using it.
South Range, Springfield, and Lowellville school districts are looking to begin using Drund.
“All the district superintendents have realized this is something they want to implement and are at different stages” of implementation, said Ron Iarussi, MCESC superintendent.
The $10,000 from the check will be used throughout the Austintown district. Sallee said ACTV will be getting new cameras and tripods and a laptop cart will be bought to be primarily used in Austintown Middle School.
English said the check was presented to Austintown for having “successfully adapted Drund for a full school year.”
Lee Yi, founder of Azork Ltd., said the program is quickly expanding.
“We’re doubling our size ... We have partners in most of the counties in Ohio,” Yi said. “We [are] past 50 percent of the state within one year. We’ve got demand from Texas, Florida — you name it.”
Yi said the most important part of Drund is also the least talked about aspect: security.
“If you’re sharing information on a public network ... who is seeing where your kid is going to be? It’s quite creepy because you can’t shut out eyeballs off that,” he said.
Austintown Superintendent Vincent Colaluca said the reason the district never started a Facebook page was security concerns, along the lines Yi discussed.
Yi said Drund does not charge the districts for its service. It makes money by selling sponsorships through local businesses.
He also said it has already doubled staff and plans to grow more this year, with an expected staff of 25.
Schiavoni spoke of Drund being used to engage the community.
“If we continue to build momentum on this, its a win-win for everyone,” he said.