District Administration - July 2006 - (Page 42)

TECHNOLOGY: NETWORKS have paid, and this system didn't allow about their ignorance of cutting-edge for any central oversight over inter- technology, saying, We knew we networking among the various schools didn't have the expertise to write the in the district, it did at least give the RFP. We didn't even have the exper- schools a reliable and reasonably fast t ise to know what questions to ask. connection to the Internet for basic According to Garcia, the biggest Web browsing and e-mail. hurdle is making sure you partner But the Clark County plan was with good technology providers. A much larger than this. Enter Carlos lot of people and vendors say they can A. Garcia, who was superintendent do a lot of things, but we knew that of district until late last year. He is some people would over-promise and now vice president of urban markets realized that no matter who we hired, for McGraw-Hill Education. Garcia there were going to be a lot of bumps took the reins at Clark County in in the road. From his experience, Gar- 2000 and spent his early months cia learned that it's vital to be patient visiting classrooms and assuaging and take the time to vet the vendors the technology situation. He was and develop partnerships with people shocked to fi nd many schools with- you want to work with. That way, out computers. In schools with com- they'll be upfront and honest about puters, several were still clinging to the obstacles, training and the amount mainframe technology that was 20 of work the project will take. or 30 years out of date and employ- During completion of the RFP and ees didn't want to let that go. a lengthy bidding process that Brody remembers not-too-fondly, the district Planning, Planning, Planning rolled out a pilot project based on the technology it had outlined in the RFP. Together with Brody, Garcia been explosive: Beginning in the That pilot project connected seven embarked on what might be the most early '00s, Clark County was opening schools, loaded them up with instruc- ambitious network upgrade in the one new school every month, a pace tion applications and allowed for cen- history of public K-12 schools. Their that has remained at this breakneck tra l monitoring at the district offices. overarching goals: consider the long rate for more than five years. It also made Garcia's goal a reality: term and find ways to leverage the technology to save money. For exam- A lot of people and Plugging the Holes ple, Garcia wanted a telephone in A s his fi rst order of business, Brody every classroom and Brody wanted vendors say they can decided he needed to at least get to ensure the schools had enough the schools a base level of connec- bandwidth. Bandwidth was king, do a lot of things, t iv it y. He knew that whatever the he explains. You could never have but we knew that district decided to do for the long enough. Adding bandwidth is expen- term, the necessary upgrades would sive and time consuming, and we some people would take years to complete. Better to wanted to get ahead of the curve so give everyone a base level of access we didn't have to play the bandwidth over-promise. immediately than force the uncon- game every year or two. nec ted schools to wait for the ulti- In order to ensure that bandwidth mate system to be installed. level was high enough, Brody planned For the short term, Brody con- for a network that would support the nected all the schools directly to the school district for up to 10 years. Internet via a frame relay system In a network project this large, from Sprint. The advantage of this the fi rst step is to craft an RFP. system was that the company could Brody and Garcia enlisted the help completely handle the installation and of PriceWaterhouse and engineering Carlos A. Garcia, management without intervention fi rm SAIC to help them determine former superintendent, from Clark County. While the price their exact technological needs and Clark County School District was more than Brody would like to to generate a plan. Garcia is candid 42 July 2006 District Administration networks.w.indd 42 6/19/06 12:45:40 PM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - July 2006

Contents
Editor's Letter
Letters
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Mixed Reviews
Making Reading Count
No-Nonsense Networking
Cover Story: Money Talks
Making Choices
The Online Edge
Speaking Out
Public Opinion
Problem/Solution
New Products
By the Numbers

District Administration - July 2006