By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
The Baldwinsville Central School District will upgrade its network infrastructure using money allotted by the Smart Schools Bond Act. In a public hearing preceding the Dec. 5 board of education meeting, Director of Technology R.J. DeLisle said the district will use about $1.3 million of its Smart Schools money to replace an aging network of switches.
New York state voters approved the Smart Schools Bond Act in 2014, which allowed the state $2 billion to provide school districts a one-time bond of up to $5 million to “finance educational technology capital projects to improve learning and opportunities for all students,” according to Baldwinsville’s Smart Schools Investment Plan. B’ville’s share of that $2 billion is $3.6 million.
“Of course, there’s always ‘Hey, let’s buy a bunch of Chromebooks or iPads,’” DeLisle said. “We discussed that and we decided that’s probably not a good idea to use this one-time boon of cash to buy individual pieces of technology, because moving forward, our budget probably wouldn’t support when those items had to be replaced.”
DeLisle said the district’s technology committee looked at Baldwinsville’s long-term IT needs and decided to upgrade the district’s network infrastructure, which needs upgrading about every 10 years. Currently, the BCSD network consists of HP 5400 xl and 3800 switches that provides 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) uplinks between buildings and 1 GbE uplinks to the desktop.
“Our [fiber-optic] cabling has all been taken care of in the last couple of capital projects, but our switches have not been replaced in about 10 years, so they’re due,” DeLisle said.
DeLisle said it would be more expedient and cost-efficient to use the Smart Schools money to upgrade the switches all at once rather than upgrading a few each budget year.
“The model of switching that we’re using has served us well. We can still get parts for them, but they’re no longer in production,” DeLisle said. “When that comes, it’s time to move on to something else.”
The district will purchase and install HP 5400R zl V2 and 3810 switches.
“The new solution will utilize 40GbE uplinks between buildings, 10GbE uplinks inside buildings and HP smart rate ports,” the investment plan reads. DeLisle said the total cost of hardware and software for the switch upgrade is $1,336,470. The BCSD must submit its upgrade plan to the state and will be reimbursed.
As for the remainder of the Smart Schools money, the district will enhance security in its facilities, especially the eight academic buildings, Assistant Superintendent for Management Services Jamie Rodems said.
A consultant will perform a security analysis of the district, and the Baldwinsville Police Department and Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office will provide input as well.
The plan for the security upgrades will be finalized later this school year.
To view the Smart Schools Investment Plan, visit bit.ly/BCSDsmart.
