RACINE - Some Racine Unified middle schools don't have computers in some classrooms. Other district schools have computers so old they can't access the Internet.

District officials estimate that Unified faces a nearly $15 million technology problem, in an era when public school officials in Racine and throughout the state and the nation are demanding that schools prepare students for the global economy by teaching "21st century skills."

This includes a heavy emphasis on computer and technology skills, which can be tricky when a district like Racine struggles yearly to keep up with the ever-changing world of computer technology.

The district only budgets a miniscule amount for technology, which has resulted in "an erosion of the existing investment in technology over the past three years," a district report said. This has had a particularly severe effect in the middle schools.

The Racine Unified School Board on Monday approved a three-year, district-wide technology plan that officials hope will help improve the condition of technology in all of the district's schools.

Officials say it is urgent that Unified add a minimum of $1 million to its budget for educational technology just to keep the district from falling further behind.

But it's only a fraction of the nearly $15 million district officials believe Unified needs to improve technology instruction in schools.

According to the plan, an estimated $3 million would come from state and federal sources and the rest, roughly $12 million, from local sources.

The money would be used to hire more staff, buy equipment, train teachers and improve instruction.

The $1 million budget item requested by Unified officials would allow the district to replace 20 percent of its equipment each year, and all of it in five years at that rate. The goal is to replace all of the district's educational computers - some of which date back to 1997 - by 2013.

Many schools are using hardware that is "becoming antiquated at best," School Board member Don Nielsen said Monday.

He asked his fellow board members to take a hard look at the technology plan and an accompanying analysis by Unified's instructional technology department that pointed out the need to address the aging technology.

"I would see this as a stepping-off point, possibly down the road, for resurrecting the technology referendum," Nielsen said. "It's quite obvious in talking to the staff that our technology needs are growing."

Staffing and funding cuts have made it difficult for Unified to keep up with rapid changes in technology in recent years, Bill Levin, district director of instructional technology, told the board Monday. He presented the plan for improving classroom technology as well as the technological literacy of students and staff.

The state Department of Public Instruction requires districts to have such a plan in order to maintain state funding and federal "title" funding which has allowed at least a few Unified schools to become "technology rich," according to district officials.

This has led to an inequity in elementary schools throughout the district because Title I schools - schools with high enrollments of low-income students - have received money for technology, officials said.

Unified has been cutting back during the past decade because of less revenue and hasn't invested money in other schools to help them keep up with existing needs, officials say. During the past three years, that has eroded existing computer platforms and software.

District officials need to see what schools have before they start applying the technology plan, said David Hazen, Unified's chief financial officer.

It's been three years since Unified last took an inventory of its technology in the schools, he said. District officials don't do an annual inventory, Hazen said, but they need to know which computers in schools are used for instruction and which are used for business purposes.

The technology plan is a minimum recommendation of what officials would like to see in the schools, Hazen said.

"I think what the district needs to do is look at this, take that inventory and see what it would take us to get there," Hazen said. "Then try to fund it accordingly in a long-range plan process, which would be over this … three year period."