Plymouth School Board members updated on corporation's technology dept.

Thursday, November 7, 2024 at 2:00 AM

By Kathy Bottorff

Monday evening members of the Plymouth Community School Board received an update from Ted Fisher, Chief Technology & Information Officer.

Fisher told the board there were 813 tickets submitted to the technology department for computer issues in the first 4-weeks of school. With 7 people in the department, he said, “That’s a lot for seven people to manage.” He said they are averaging around 173 tickets for issues monthly. Out of 3,000 devices they see about 20 breaks a week, which he said is a pretty low number. With Apple Care, each student gets two breaks a year that are covered under Apple. Fisher only five seemed to be malicious care so they didn’t put in a claim for Apple.

The corporation is spending $4,000 to $6,000 a quarter replacing cords and chargers. The last purchase was 150 chargers and cords at $38 apiece. They have been budgeting about $10,000 a year per school and they seem to be using most of it. Students and billed and invoiced for the missing parts and currently there are about 650 open invoices currently.

The Technology Department handles the fobs for doors, computers, and software issues.

Fisher told the school board new this year are the servers. They placed servers that were 10- to 15-year-old. They also have a new firewall system with Next Gen giving the corporation the next level of security.

CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company that offers cloud-based software and services to protect against malware and cyber-attacks, costs the PCSC $61,000 annually. They applied for the SLGCP (State and Local Government Cybersecurity Program) Grant which is saving the corporation some money.

Fisher also discussed future projects. They have created a 4-year plan for projector replacements. They were replacing them as needed but many are creeping up to 10 years old. The corporation’s phone systems are 10 to 14 years old. The first 100 phones will ship later this month, covering three of the smallest elementaries.

Recently the PCSC was awarded $331,000 of category 2 money that can be used for switches, closets and behind the scenes technology.