For the past 18 months, the Kitsap Regional Economic Development Council (KREDC) has spearheaded a countywide campaign to improve the region’s telecommunications infrastructure and services.

Regular participants of the EDC-sponsored Regional Telecommunications Committee have learned that this has positive impacts on business, health care, government, education, and society as a whole.

There is no doubt that genuine paradigm shifts are taking place as a result of telecommunications capacity. One notable illustration is what has transpired over the past two years within the sprawling North Kitsap School District (NKSD), which includes more than 6,700 students and some 20 schools and support facilities scattered throughout the county’s northern reaches.

The nature of education. itself, is changing at North Kitsap. Schools have become learning centers with windows to the world for both teachers and students. The presumed bell-curve of student achievement — some doing poorly, some well, and the rest moderately — has changed to the presumption of success for all students, with instruction tailored to individual needs and interests.

An education system defined by the calendar is redefining itself by reference to outcomes. Learning tied to classroom locations can now be done from anywhere. Study and learning by yourself has become more collaborative. So how did all this happen?

About two years ago, Bill Every, Director of Technology and Administrative Information Management, was hired to bring the district into the Internet age. What he discovered upon his arrival was an antiquated telecommunications system that went from being a “superhighway” within the district’s facilities to something akin to “a dirt road” once it connected to lines outside of those buildings.

Using a pool of grant money, some provided by the Gates Foundation, Every and his techno-assistants worked with Sprint and CenturyTel on providing T-1 access (a digital transmission line capable of handling 24 voice conversations at once) to every school in the district, completing the job in Sept. 1999. Later, they rebuilt and installed 30 file servers and a district-wide e-mail system. They built up an inventory of 2,500 computers for the district, complete with Internet access tools and the latest Pentium chips, including a donation of 525 compatible computers from Washington Mutual and 50 more from the IRS.

As a result of all this behind-the-scenes work, NKSD has one of the highest computer-to-student ratios in the state. Students, teachers, parents and the community are benefiting in any number of ways. For example, the district’s web site is a virtual communication-at-your fingertips tool. Anyone can access it and get information on curriculum, board agendas, class schedules. calendars, programs, the district’s newsletter and the like.

In addition, teachers and students can post their own information to the site. Access to the school’s library. plus new, innovative software allows students and faculty to explore vast, new educational resources, experts, institutions and learning opportunities.

Every says the Internet is redefining education by creating a “learning environment where anyone can learn anything from anywhere at any time. None of this could have happened without advanced telecommunications.”

It is this sort of example that helps reinforce the KREDC’s efforts to work with providers and push for government policies that make telecommunications services a high priority in Kitsap County.