Kankakee Times

Manteno Community Unit School District 5 Board of Education Technology Committee met November 6. 

Here is the minutes as provided by the committee:

Meeting called to order at 3:30

In attendance: Jake Emerson, Roger Schnitzler, Chris Bohula, Dan Christ, Tom Steele, Gale

Dodge, Kristi Van Zeyl, Rebecca Ganger, Cara Baldwin, Cathy Creek, Matthew Glenn

1) Tech Dept updates

a. E-rate - Our Form 470 is filed and 4 RFP’s have been issued. All are due

December 1 and should be ready for board action at the December meeting.

i. If it doesn’t happen for December it will be at the January meeting at the

latest.

b. DO radios - the DO radios seem to be much more stable, but we are continuing to

explore a licensed frequency. Entre Systems from Bloomington is coming

Tuesday to do a site survey.

i. No cost for Entre to come to district.

c. Cameras - we received a quote from Precision Control who did the initial camera

install. It was about twice what we were expecting. We are also seeking a quote

from Sound Inc for comparison purposes.

d. Printers - the major Windows Update to Fall Creators Edition broke printing.

Fortunately a problem with McAfee has prevented most of our workstations from

updating. We are working with Proven on a solution but the problem appears to

be with Windows. Tom emailed a workaround to all staff last week. We have

implemented a policy to delay the update 180 days for workstations that have not

updated.

e. Phones - we discovered a couple weeks ago that callers could get through to

classrooms by dialing the main number, then dialing the extension bypassing our

redirect mechanism. The direct dialing by extension has been disabled but callers

can still dial the classroom directly using the directory. We are exploring options

for sending those calls directly to voicemail.

2) Website reliability

a. We are once again having trouble with our district and school websites going

i. It has gone down a few times in the last few weeks. It is also occurring for

another district using School-in-Sites in Illinois. They approached us

about whether we were considering a switch.

b. School-in-Sites blames the problem on Denial of Service attacks

c. They should be able to mitigate this problem and is indicative of a weak or poorly

designed infrastructure

d. If we change, it will require a complete redesign of both the district and building

websites, including all teacher websites. This will be a MAJOR change.

e. If we keep it, we can expect to continue having downtime.

f. The committee recommended to look into options and continue discussion in

January.

i. Cathy asked when contract is up. Current contract is year to year. Cost is

around 3500-4000/year.

ii. Roger asked what else is used in area. Tom said it varies greatly

iii. Chris said his district uses School Wires and will look into the cost.

iv. Tom asked if a survey should be sent to teachers to see how they are using

the school website. Consensus was that most teachers do not use their

district webiste for large amounts of information outside of general bio page.

v. Roger says most of the use by parents probably comes from parents

looking at moving in and applicants.

vi. Tom will look into School Wire and have a proposal for a later meeting.

3) HS 1:1

a. Recap - last month the committee decided to allow students to take Chromebooks

home and not use the carts

b. Cost of implementing HS 1:1 is estimated at approximately $230,940. There are

rumors Chromebook costs could increase by about $25/Chromebook due to

industry part constraints.

i. $270.00/chromebook. Around 726s chromebooks needed for a total of

196,020. Probably high - assumes 3% growth.

ii. Around 44 spare chromebooks for 11,800

iii. Cases will cost around 10,890

iv. Staff chromebooks - 45 needed totalling 12,150.

v. Grand total - 230,940 - This is on the high side but cost of chromebooks is

currently going up.

c. Some expenses could be recouped by not purchasing new computer labs or

textbooks. Also, $25 of the registration fee was supposed to be earmarked for

technology. We could see a net savings of over $12,000/yr

i. current fee is around $17,500/yr

ii. Not replacing labs saves around $24,000/yr

iii. Eliminating textbooks could save around $25,000 - 30,000/yr

iv. Cost of 1:1 - $230,940

v. Average 4 year savings due to 1:1 potentially up to $280,000

d. Options for funding

i. District pays 100%

1. Pros

a. No burden on parents

b. Easier to maintain/manage - no fees to collect

c. Equitable

2. Cons

a. Significant hit to district funds

b. Difficult to sustain

i. have to replace in no more than 5 years

ii. BYOD

1. Pros

a. Low cost to district

i. only cost for free and reduced students

b. Allows parents to find best deal; save money

c. Allows students to use the device of their choice

d. Students more accountable/take better care of device they own

2. Cons

a. Few options to manage/control

b. Disparity of platforms is a challenge in the classroom

c. No way to support/breakage is student’s responsibility

d. District must still provide for students in NSLP

i. HS is around 28% in NSLP

iii. Increase fees to parents

1. Pros

a. Reduces financial strain on district/makes program more

sustainable

b. District owned devices are fully manageable

c. Provides equity in device distribution (everyone has like

model)

2. Cons

a. High cost for parents

b. No reasonable way to force parents to pay

c. District responsible for all devices

d. District must still provide for students in NSLP

3. The committee discussed fees and recommended to continue

discussion in January.

4. Amortized over life of Chromebook ($270/4=$67.50/yr)

5. Estimated cost of 44 spares is $11,880 which should not be passed

along to parents

6. Only recoup about 50% in fees after Free/Reduced Lunch and

refusals to pay

a. Cathy says she wants equity across fees for MS and HS

students.

b. Cathy also asked if the fee would be $67.50 plus the $25

currently built-in to the registration fee the parents

currently pay. Tom said he didn’t think it would but it

would be up to the board.

c. Cathy is concerned with the fact that parents can refuse to

pay and the cost is put on those parents that agree.

iv. Discussed Pana IL Case Study

1. Charge $80 for full pay, $40 fee for free and reduced

2. Reduced textbook fee from 55 to 30 dollars

3. They charge $19/yr for insurance

4. On a 3 year replacement cycle and seniors use retired chromebooks

or BYOD.

5. Students in good standing keep chromebook at the end.

6. Parent can opt out of purchase program and if they do the

Chromebook is checked out from library on a daily basis.

a. Gale asked how long it took Pana’s parents to accept the

increase in cost. Tom said after about 2 years they noticed

parents accepting of 1:1 fees.

v. Lease - should we lease the Chromebooks to spread the hit over 4 years?

1. Leasing increases about 10% cost to the chromebooks.

vi. Recommendations:

1. Roger says he would like to sit on this for another month. He is

not understanding why we need to increase fee by 45.00.

2. Currently the plans are to purchase Chromebooks for 3rd and 4th

graded. Roger asked why can’t this money be used to offset the

cost. Gale asked what we had budgeted for 3rd and 4th grade

Chromebook purchase. Jake will look at what was budgeted.

Roger suggests doing a small increase at first.

3. Matthew said during finance meeting one of the HS teachers said

they would not use a Chomebook so some teachers might be

opposed.

4. Gale asked if Roger can get a group of teachers together at the HS

to propose what they think will work best and present to the

committees and board.

5. Tom says we have to do something with the 3rd and 4th grade

next year and so either we purchase for them or we move the

current HS chromebooks down to the ES. Around 300-350

chromebooks needed at ES.

e. Next meeting - No meeting in December. Continue talk about about

Chromebooks in January to come up with a fee for proposal at February board

meeting.

4) Building updates

a. ES

i. Still having printer issues

b. MS

i. none

c. HS

i. none

5) Future items

a. HS 1:1 - Implementation

b. Continue talk about website possibility for a possible change next year at the end

of current contract.

6) Other

7) Adjournment

a. Roger Schnitzler made a motion to adjourn. Matthew Glenn seconded. Motion

carried.

b. Meeting was adjourned at 4:42.

http://images.pcmac.org/Uploads/MantenoCUSD/MantenoCUSD/Departments/MeetingSchedule/20171106TC_Minutes.pdf