The District 233 school board approved spending $234,000 to update Homewood-Flossmoor High School’s data center and firewall to keep computer systems current and functioning properly.
The board took action at its May 19 meeting, approving a technology budget of $662,046.
Steve Richardson, assistant director of the H-F Technology Department, told the Chronicle the data center “is the heart of our internal network. The data center handles many functions such as user authentication, data storage, archival data, our student management system, and database applications. This is a crucial component in our daily operations.”
The data center is seven years old and at the end of its working life. Richardson reported at the Finance Committee that manufacturers no longer support the hardware. The district is spending $31,000 annually in maintenance costs on the system.
The $171,000 replacement will bolster the data center’s performance and security and comes with a five-year maintenance agreement. The board awarded the contract to Mindsight.
The district also will be purchasing a new firewall, a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic using H-F security rules. The current system is at the end of its useful life. The manufacturer is no longer supporting maintenance for the system, Richardson said.
The firewall costs $63,000, with a $25,000 reimbursement through the FCC E-Rate Program. The contract was awarded to SpeedLink.
The district needs even more security since H-F is increasing its bandwidth from one to three gigabytes of data. The improved firewall is essential to meet the district’s needs for this update, Richardson said. He also expects the new system will reduce the district’s costs on its Comcast contract.
In addition, the technology department will be purchasing 339 Chromebooks. This will allow for the replacement of a portion of the 3,000 machines available to students. Some school districts provide personal devices to each student. At H-F, the equipment remains in classrooms so each student has a viable machine during the class period.
Gary Posing, director of the Technology Department, said the high school gets on average six years of service from the machines. Generally, the machines are good for four to five years. The older machines are used for library checkout and at-home checkout and kept in reserve should a classroom machine become damaged.
The district also is purchasing 207 computers for lab settings for graphics design, journalism, 3D art, photography, 2D art, programming/applied academics, teaching and learning center and the world language lab.
Posing said this older equipment will be recycled for use throughout the building in areas that don’t necessarily require the latest and fastest software packages.
The district has an annual budget of $500,000 for technology. Richardson said as District 233 relies more and more on computers and other equipment, the technology department is spending a greater share of the budget on replacement equipment. He estimates by 2023, the entire technology budget will be for replacements leaving nothing for new equipment.