School board OKs technology spending
The Board of Education has approved spending about $132,000 in state Smart Schools bond money to improve information technology equipment.
At a board public hearing Tuesday, district officials said they want to focus on connectivity between buildings and protecting data as part of a threephase effort to update technology. “This is the first application,” Assistant Superintendent Thomas Burnell said. “More than likely, the other two phases will be done in one application.”
The district has been allocated $277,209 from the $2 billion bond that was approved by voters in a 2014 state proposition.
The district expects funding applications eventually will be submitted for classroom technology ($125,147) and security system improvements ($20,000). “We’re going to wait to see how phase one works before we start building out phase two,” Superintendent Joseph Phelan said. Under the $132,061 application, the district will seek funding to replace domain controllers, replace a firewall on the server and install fiber optic cable between Chancellor Livingston Elementary School and the middle/high school building.
“The fiber optic line will really allow us to have one whole network, as opposed to two separate networks and improve [data] speed between the buildings, too,” Burnell said. “It’s about $80,000, and then there’s an annual fee for pole rental.”
Information was not immediately available about the route the fiber optic line would take, but the distance between the buildings is 0.7 miles along village streets.
Phelan said the application reduced the request by $7,000 so the district could move forward with a computer server instead of waiting for state approval of the grant funding.
“There is a server for the office that we’re not buying through that Smart [Schools] bond money, and we’ll be buying it through the general fund,” he said.
Information in a Sept. 14 report on the state Education Department website shows 267 of about 650 districts that were allocated funding have submitted applications for all or partial amounts. There is no deadline to use the money.