Students may be busy buying that last item on the school supplies list or finalizing their schedules, but school districts are focused on something else entirely, tinkering with the new programs and changes implemented this year. Summit County’s three school districts North Summit, South Summit and Park City have their own additions for the school year, from text alerts to dual immersion.

In the Park City School District, parents and students can expect a number of changes when school starts next Wednesday, Aug. 29. For the first time, all four elementary schools will be offering the dual immersion program making the Park City School District the first in the state to have dual immersion in all elementary schools. The pilot program started three years ago with Parley’s Park Elementary offering Spanish to students, and last year, Trailside Elementary added a French program. This year, Jeremy Ranch and McPolin Elementary will also offer the dual immersion program.

“As we move forward, we’ve seen the benefits of dual immersion,” said Ray Timothy, the Park City School District superintendent.

Timothy said the dual immersion program expanding was the largest changed for the district, but that many other changes were also underway. The district hired three new principals, a major administrative shift compared to past years, Timothy said. Park City School District has taken its technology initiatives to the next level, offering greater access to technology to all students starting at the fifth grade. The initiative began several years ago with a fifth grade class and expanded as those students moved up in grade. Students in sixth grade through high school will also be issued laptops, the first year the high school has been included in the program.

“This year, we’ve finally rolled the program into the high school,” Timothy said. “Each year our technology initiative has grown.”

Early Release Days for elementary schools have been extended by 10 minutes, ending at 12:40 rather than 12:30, a switch that will allow the district to save money in transportation costs.

Another change this year for parents will be a new alert system that can notify parents via email, voicemail and text messages on emergencies, meetings, activities and events at the school. Parents will be automatically enrolled in the program for email alerts using student registration information.

“We want to increase our communication with parents, make sure they’re aware of what’s going on in the schools,” said Patrick Ogden, the district finance and information specialist. “We certainly want to be able to alert them to an emergency, but also activities, meetings and whether or not their student has missed any school.”

To sign up for the text message version of the program, parents must watch for incoming emails from the district in the coming weeks when the project officially launches.

The South Summit School District held its first day of classes Monday, including its first dual immersion classes for half of its first graders. The district hired the new dual immersion teacher this summer, building a Spanish-speaking program.

“We’re excited about the program,” said Superintendent Barry Walker. “Our plan is to move that into the second, third, fourth and fifth grades, every year adding a new grade.”

As several teachers and administrators left at the end of last year, the district hired nine new employees. In a district that might hire one to two new faculty between school years, Walker said the staff changes this year were dramatic including a new high school principal.

“We’ve lost some experience and gained some new enthusiasm,” he added. “There are several newer, younger teachers.”

South Summit School District also plans to improve its image and relationship with the surrounding community, to “be more customer-oriented than in the past,” Walker said. Though he would not outline any specifics, he said teachers and staff have already gone through some brief training and he anticipates adding more elements throughout the year.

The North Summit School District begins this Thursday, Aug. 23 with the same schedules and school policies from last year. But that doesn’t mean students won’t be in for something new this year. The district is implementing an adaptive testing system to better compare student performances from year to year as well as performances against other counties in the state.

“We’re interested in measuring growth,” said Superintendent Jerre Holmes. “With the End of Level tests, we will test in the spring and then the students move on. This year, we’re going to test in the fall so we can see what the kids started with and test in spring and see what they ended with.”

The new testing system is part of a statewide initiative that is currently being developed but would not hit schools in Utah for another two years, Holmes said.

“We didn’t feel like we wanted to wait on this,” he added, “so we went ahead with the program.”

The school district also hopes to improve student learning and growth with each school creating its own program to work with struggling students. Holmes outlined three key points: testing, collaboration of teachers and intervention. Teachers have been allotted additional time to spend with students needing extra help. How the program works and when teachers spend that extra time varies from school to school.

“Students won’t see it directly,” Holmes said. “We’re hoping that through teachers collaborating more, they will analyze student data and talk more about instruction. We believe this will help teachers focus more on students needs.”