First, we have several new laptops coming in for instructional staff in the next few months. Our department will be working out a safe distribution plan to get those to instructional staff in the coming months. More information will follow as the time draws closer to distribution, so thank you for your patience.
We are also planning on upgrading the wired network infrastructure this year leveraging E-Rate, this plan calls for replacing every single network switch in the district. The hope here is that it will increase the network speed and throughput for both wired and wireless connectivity. Given that we are a one for one device district now, we must prepare for the eventual return of all students to campus and need a robust and reliable network to support the large load of devices once this happens. Much of the infrastructure is quite antiquated and in desperate need of an upgrade; so we will focus on addressing that this year.
Another herculean task is replacing and modernizing our security camera infrastructure. The board has approved and awarded a contract to do just that. I will be working with our vendor over the course of the next months to develop a plan to implement this with the hopes of having this completed for all buildings by the end of summer.
And last, but certainly not least is classroom technology improvements, this year when we return to campus, we have rolled out a trial program for interactive displays in select classrooms (one per a building) to test and pilot this new device to enhance instruction. The concept is first to test this out and receive feedback, these devices are designed to replace both a smartboard and projector by integrating both functions into a single device. They can also do so much more (in which we will build a training program to teach instructional staff on their use inside the classroom). Once we’re confident that this is the way ahead, we will seek board approval to deploy this all classrooms. An effort such as this takes time, so we don’t anticipate seeing these in every classroom until next year. Once I have more information; I will share it out (e.g., such as which classrooms we are piloting these in - I should have this information readily available in the next newsletter, and would encourage each of you to check them out!).
Once again YCS, welcome back and please take care of yourself and your families, be safe and happy computing.
