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| By Dan Cooper Staff Intern EAST LONGMEADOW - Superintendent of Schools Dr. Edward Costa presented a plan to the School Committee during their Feb. 5 meeting to upgrade the computer systems in the town's five schools through newer equipment to replace the currently outdated technology. Costa, with the help of information technology (IT) director Ryan Quimby and technicians Gary Blanchard and Sean Leahy, used a PowerPoint presentation to show where technology in the town began 10 years ago and how far it has come since then. "Ten years ago, there was no full time technology staff and no content filters," said Costa to the committee. "Within five years, all the buildings in the town were connected through technology but there was no video surveillance or online courses available." Quimby said that today fiber optics interconnects all the technology in the town and that there is a town owned e-mail account. "We now have spam filtering and content filtering available for the school as well," he said. Costa said that the content filtering is only available to pornography sites and other sites with offensive material. "It is not an off the shelf filtering system," Costa said. "If a site is found that should be filtered, I just have to call up IT and they can filter it. Quimby said there are 516 mail addresses and 650 usernames used throughout the town's 1,100 computers. "The town is now part of one network," he said. Costa said the biggest problems, however, are in the school's computers. "The equipment is nine years old and by 2008, 92 percent of it will be out of warranty," Costa said. Blanchard and Leahy explained that the schools are wired using hubs, which split ports. "There is no connection between hubs and optics," they said. Costa said the new technology would use a central switch, which is "a more intelligent device." "Because the schools use hubs and the rest of the town uses a switch, this creates a bottleneck, which is why all five schools have hardware problems," Costa said. Costa presented a proposal to upgrade the high school and Birchland Park Middle School to a main switch. "This would give them more advanced technology and connect the schools to the central core switch in the Town Hall," Costa said. Costa said the high school and middle school would be upgraded first because students use computers more in those schools than in the elementary schools. "Once we get the new equipment in the high school and middle school, we can take that equipment and put them in the elementary schools, which has much older equipment," Costa said. "That way we will be able to replace the older hubs to switches." Costa said there is enough money in the budget so that the high school can be paid for this year. "Our best quote is approximately $21,000 so far," Costa said. "We are still looking at equipment, which is the kind any major business would buy." Quimby said the high school would only take a couple of weeks to configure and get up and running. "If we do nothing, the bridge between the schools and the towns will be torn," Costa said. Committee Chairman Bob Mazzarello agreed. "We need to stay on top. We have excellent schools and they deserve excellent technology," he said. Costa then revealed the results of a brief online survey for parents. "Question one was concerning when parents want to see school start, before or after Labor Day," Costa said. "51 percent said after, while 49 percent said before Labor Day, so it's about even." Costa said question two asked whether to eliminate the February vacation week, to which 63 percent of parents said to leave it in the calendar. Costa said 75 percent of parents also said no to question three, which asked if more school days should be added to the state minimum of 180. Business manager Theresa Olejarz then told the Committee in her report that the price for fuel shot up 14 cents. "There is still plenty of time to lock in, though," she said. Costa added that the Wall Street Journal said February is still the month to lock in. The School Committee then approved two field trips for the high school lacrosse team during spring break in April and on March 24, which had to be voted on because it crossed state lines into New York and New Jersey. The School Committee also agreed to possibly move their meetings to Tuesday nights if the Board of Selectmen is willing to move their meeting night. The next School Committee meeting is scheduled for Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the Superintendent's office behind East Longmeadow High School. |