Smart Schools Q & A

Q: What the environment will look like to students and teachers, i.e. will wireless be the sole connectivity approach or will wired still be used.

A: The environment when complete will provide for ubiquitous wireless coverage throughout all our buildings and many of the outside areas as well. The design not only includes the use of wireless for district and personal devices, but also provides for the upgrade of all district wiring to support faster speed desktop connections. This is especially necessary for lab environments or high internet use classes and media access for students as well as teacher instruction.

Q: What will the wireless capacity be? Speed and number of connections?

A: The wireless capability will be at Gigabit speed with an access point in every classroom to support a full class connection. This provides for the bandwidth as well as the need for coverage since the construction of the buildings does not allow the signal to permeate well through many of the walls. In larger areas such as libraries and Little Theaters, we are adding additional access points for larger target audiences.

Q: If wired, will each room have access points? And how do we perceive the wired access being utilized?

A: Each room will have an access point due to building construction. Wired connections will still be available for district devices, classrooms PCs, Teacher Instruction PCs, and labs.

Q: How upwardly compatible are the infrastructure enhancements are expected to be?

A: The infrastructure, which has not been touched since East and Sequoya were built over 10 years ago, is being upgraded to all 10Gigabit switches for the continued growth of the district and the ever increasing bandwidth required. Wiring will be in place for additional access points in each location or dual connectivity access points if needed in the future as well. The switches will not only impact the connectivity to each classroom and each device, but also increase the connections we now maintain through fiber connecting all our buildings.