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Warsaw Community Schools will upgrade its wireless and wired networking equipment while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars if the school board approves a bid by Network Solutions Inc. at its regular meeting Monday.
At its public work session Tuesday, Director of Technology Brad Hagg reminded the school board that at its January meeting he asked for permission to go out for bid proposals for its e-rate process.
E-rate is the federal program that lets school corporations receive reimbursements for funds generally for internet access. The federal government also is on a five-year program to help improve infrastructure in schools as well, he said.
Hagg said two proposals were received, but one was from a company proposing Aruba equipment. WCS has Cisco equipment and wants to stay consistent with the equipment it has.
The other proposal was from a company that sold Cisco equipment – Network Solutions Inc.
Total cost of the equipment after the federal discounted pricing negotiated through Cisco is $533,877.50, but Hagg said it’s probably closer to $1 million worth of equipment.
“So then, because of our Free and Reduced Lunch percentage, we only have to pay 20 percent of that,”?he said. That takes WCS’s cost down to $106,777.50 to put all the updated network new equipment in the schools and increase the speed of WCS’s firewall.
This project will upgrade wireless and wired networking equipment at Lakeview Middle School, Claypool, Eisenhower, Madison, Leesburg, Harrison, Jefferson, Gateway and the central office, according to the contract.
Of the matching funds the school corporation will have to pay, about $98,000 will come out of the technology fund, and close to $8,000 will come out of the capital projects fund.
Formal approval of the upgrade is expected Monday.
In other matters, Director of Human Resources Jeanine Corson was asked by board member Randy Polston for an update on efforts to hire more bus drivers.
He said he noticed three bus drivers were hired.
Corson replied, “Because we’ve been without a director, Emily (Hoover) and I have been pushing in. We have conducted (interviews) for a couple of positions. One, an office person, and then we had four open routes. We extended three contingent offers based on the background checks.”
One potential bus driver went through all the paperwork but was apprehensive about the job, so Corson said they’re trying to work with her to ease her into a bus driver position.
“So hopefully three out of the four open routes will be filled during the next week. And we’re not giving up. Hopefully, we’re looking at some advertising, so it’s ongoing. Once we have a director, Emily and I have talked about, it’s every single week you have to interview every single possible driver that comes in,” she said.
She said without a director, she thinks that got a little backlogged to do the interviews, but they’re getting closer.
“And then it’s on to some other areas like custodial work. The other ‘hot’ areas that we need to get. We’re trying to think outside the box,” Corson said.
Polston asked where the school district was as far as paraprofessionals (a trained aide who assists a professional person such as a teacher).
“Still, we’ll always have a demand for paras, I don’t think that’s going away.?I do think every single building, they had to up their hours so their needs are changing. The number of hours they need are going down. It’s still not fully staffed, it’s market driven. It is kind of tough in that area,” Corson responded.
She said the number of open paraprofessional positions at each school varies. “You just never know. Some people just decide they don’t want to do this anymore,” she said, but adding the hours a paraprofessional works sometimes help.
“Unless our economy changes, and we get a huge influx of people, we’re going to be challenged to fill all these positions,” Corson said.
Polston said Feb. 22 is Grace College’s job fair and would be an opportunity to potentially hire students for open positions. Hoffert said the school district has hired for various positions through the past job fairs there.
