District Administration - January 2012 - (Page 68)

Buying in Bulk CONTINuED cio District discount. It was the district’s first such refresh in nine years, according to Dominic Potenza, senior manager at Nassau BOCES, who served as project manager for that installation. “They came to us not only to purchase the equipment, which provided economies of scale in terms of volume, but also the ability to use our team for implementation and management,” Potenza says. “We have a full team of people here at the BOCES that coordinated the distribution effort throughout nine schools plus the administration building. It was a massive undertaking that went very smoothly.” “For technology services, their office is second-to-none,” agrees Bob Schilling, executive director for assessment, student data and technology services at Massapequa, which has nine schools. They review specifications with vendors, work off the request for proposals—and they project-manage it, he adds. In addition to the hardware savings on the $1.6 million installation, Massapequa the following year received a reimbursement of 43 percent from the state of New York based on a formula through which each district is reim- Unqua Elementary School pupils in the Massapequa Union Free School District develop math skills using en Vision MATH software and a SMART board, items the district bought in bulk. Common Cloud In Illinois, more than 150 districts have banded together to create a unified cloud infrastructure. Tech staff at Bloomington Public School District 87 set the notion in motion based on conversations they had over time with colleagues in other districts around the state, says Jim Peterson, technology director for Bloomington and chief technology officer for Illini Cloud. “We’re able to offer infrastructure for schools that there’s no way they could possibly afford themselves,” he says. “It’s about disaster recovery more than anything.” When districts have lost on-site servers due to tornados, for example, they have lost their data. “This allows us to make “It’s about disaster recovery more than anything. ” —Jim Peterson, technology director, Bloomington (Ill.) Public School District 87 bursed for BOCES services; that formula is based on factors such as the total number of students and the percentage of families below the poverty line. The state recognizes the value of technology upgrades and gives incentives, Schilling says. “I wouldn’t have been able to do the sheer amount of projects I’ve been doing without that aid.” sure it’s off-site, at least 100 miles away,” Peterson says. Districts save at least 50 percent over what they would using a commercial cloud service like Amazon or Microsoft. “We charge what our costs would be, plus a sustainability fee,” says Jason Radford, system administrator in Bloomington and cloud architect at Illini Cloud. “Dis- tricts want to put stuff up in our cloud because it’s more secure than what they put up in their own district. School districts can’t afford $1 million worth of security—but now they can.” The cloud also helps with districts’ burgeoning storage needs as, for example, what once would have been written book reports morph into multimedia projects that sometimes include audio or video. Radford says that installing this storage capability on the cloud saved Bloomington between $130,000 and $150,000 over the cost of district-based servers. “It’s not just the cost savings, it’s the agility,” he adds. “It allows you to take that money that you had to invest in technology and redirect it into the classroom.” Illini Cloud has enabled Glenview School District 34 to upgrade quality and save money on disaster recovery, several server applications that support classroom work, and the district’s entire library system. Next, the district is looking to upload the student information system, which the district tested in November. “Instead of buying servers on our own, we’re looking to place those needs on the cloud,” says Brian Engle, executive director of educational technology. The cloud could save $7,000 to $8,000 every two to three years for the student information 68 January 2012 District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - January 2012

District Administration - January 2012
Contents
Letters
News Update
Conversations
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Finding the Perfect Fit
Kansas City Plots Next Steps
Seeking Savings in Special Ed
K12 Guide to Audio/Visual Solutions
Equipping Teachers to Infuse Technology
Flipped Classrooms Gaining Ground
Buying in Bulk
Online Identity Management
Going Mobile
Student Counsel
Online Edge
New Books
New Products
Product Focus
Professional Opinion

District Administration - January 2012

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