K–12 Leaders Get Creative to Make the Case for Network Upgrades
Author: eli.zimmerman_9856
{authorlink}
Go to Source
eli.zimmerman_9856
Thu, 06/20/2019 – 12:02
Two years ago, IT Services Director AJ Phillips needed to persuade her school board to purchase new network infrastructure, so she tapped her prior experience as an elementary school teacher and presented a show-and-tell.
At the time, Prince William County Public Schools in Virginia desperately needed to replace its 20-year-old core network, which maxed out at 2 gigabits per second. Parents and staff complained about slow, spotty performance.
But from the school board’s perspective, the schools already had a network, so board members wondered why it wasn’t working properly. During a school board meeting, Phillips arrived with a set of props: three PVC pipes she borrowed from the school division’s plumbing shop. She showed a 1-inch, 2-inch and 10-inch pipe, labeling them as 1Gbps, 2Gbps and 10Gbps.
“I told them we were at 1 gig in 2013, we went up to 2 gigs in 2015, and now we need 10 gigs,” Phillips says. “We are trying to get 90 schools and 58,000 network devices and connections to go through this little 2-gig pipe, and it’s not working. And they said, ‘We get it.’ It was a visual that totally made sense to them.”
Educate Stakeholders About Cost Comparisons and Success Stories
Schools today require vast amounts of bandwidth, but convincing leaders to pay for networking projects is often challenging, even with the Federal Communication Commission’s E-rate program subsidizing most of the costs. IT leaders must present a solid business case — sometimes with creative approaches, like the one Phillips took — but also by explaining the finances.
That requires educating stakeholders on E-rate discounts and showing that building a fiber network can be more cost-effective than using a WAN service provider, says Jack Lynch, director of state engagements at EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit that helps schools get high-speed internet access.
A show-and-tell helped board members understand the need for more bandwidth, says AJ Phillips of Prince William County (Va.) Public Schools. Photography by: Jonathan Timmes.
