Warren County Career Center Technology Plan 2015 2018 ...

Warren County Career Center Technology Plan 2015 2018

Table of Contents

Section 1: Planning Logistics, Pgs 10 - 14

● Technology Planning Committee Profile And Membership, Pg 10

● Technology Vision Statement, Pg 10

● Technology Mission Statement, Pg 10

● Goals That Have Been Met, Pg 11

● Needs That Have Been Addressed, Pg 11

● Goals That Are No Longer Relevant, Pg 12

● Goals That Still Need To Be Addressed, Pg 13

Section 2: Curriculum Alignment & Instructional Integration, Pgs 15 - 50

● Goal Titles, Pg 15

● Section 2 Comments, Pg 15

● Goal 1: Online, Interactive Assessment, Pg 16

○ Strategy 1: Use of software to leverage online assessment for each module of the

curriculum utilizing the learning management system, Pg 17

○ Strategy 2: Career Technical Assessments for the State of Ohio (Secondary), Pg 17

○ Strategy 3: Participation in Field Tests for Ohio Core Evaluation and Graduation

Requirements, Pg 18

○ Strategy 4: Career Technical Industry Certifications, Pg 18

○ Strategy 5: Adult Education Online Assessment and Industry Certifications, Pg 19

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○ Professional Development, Pg 19

○ Evaluation, Pg 20

○ Estimated Budget, Pg 21

● Goal 2: Best Practices and Innovative New Technology, Pg 21

○ Strategy 1: Curriculum Review and Lesson Planning, Pg 22

○ Strategy 2: Site Visits, Advisory Committees, and Technology Conferences, Pg 22

○ Strategy 3: Technology Professional Development Program, Pg 23

○ Strategy 4: Using Chrome Web Store Apps for Blended Instruction, Pg 23

○ Strategy 5: Using the Learning Management System (LMS) for Blended Instruction, Pg

23

○ Strategy 6: Coordination Within and Across Departments and Career Clusters, Pg 24




● Goal 3: Communication of Technology Initiatives, Pg 27

○ Strategy 1: Technology Department FAQ and Bulletin, Pg 28

○ Strategy 2: Technology Purchasing Process, Pg 28

○ Strategy 3: Staff Communication to Advisory Committees, Pg 28




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● Goal 4: Standardization of Hardware and Software Resources for Curriculum and

Instruction, Pg 30

○ Strategy 1: Standardization of Hardware – Computers for Offices, Career Technical

Labs, and Public Computer Labs, Pg 31

○ Strategy 2: Standardization of Hardware/Software – 1:1 Initiative, Pg 34

○ Strategy 3: Standardization of Hardware - Multimedia Audio/Video, Pg 35

○ Strategy 4: Standardization of Software - End User, Pg 37

○ Strategy 5: Standardization of Software - Cloud Services, Pg 38

○ Strategy 6: Standardization of Software - Learning Management System, Pg 39

○ Strategy 7: Standardization of Software - Remote Access, Pg 40




● Goal 5: Sustaining and Advancing the Mobile 1:1 Technology Initiative, Pg 43

○ Strategy 1: Mobile 1:1 Platform Decision, Pg 44

○ Strategy 2: Sustaining the Mobile 1:1 Initiative, Pg 46

○ Strategy 3: Advancing the Mobile 1:1 initiative, Pg 47




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Section 3: Technology Policy, Leadership, and Administration, Pgs 51 - 68



● Goal 1: Board Approved Policy, Pg 52

○ Strategy 1: Extracting Technology Related Policy, Pg 52

○ Strategy 2: Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, Pg 53

○ Strategy 3: Revising and Implementing New Policy, Pg 53




● Goal 2: Technology Department Policies, Standards, and Use, Pg 55

○ Strategy 1: Technology Department FAQ, Pg 55

○ Strategy 2: Technology Bulletin, Pg 56

○ Strategy 3: Technology User Guides, Pg 56




● Goal 3: Structuring Technology Leadership, Pg 58

○ Strategy 1: Fostering Growth, Pg 58

○ Strategy 2: District Technology Initiatives, Pg 59


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● Goal 4: Developing Technology Initiatives, Pg 61

○ Strategy 1: Technology Conferences, Pg 62

○ Strategy 2: Bench Test – Try Before You Buy, Pg 62

○ Strategy 3: Coordination with External Vendors, Pg 63

○ Strategy 4: Workflows for Technology Initiatives, Pg 63

○ Strategy 5: Curriculum Revision and Technology Initiatives, Pg 63




● Goal 5: Technology Budget Process, Pg 66

○ Strategy 1: The Technology Budget Process, Pg 66




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Section 4: Technology Infrastructure, Management, and Support, Pgs 69 - 122



● Goal 1: Wireless Infrastructure, Pg 70

○ Strategy 1: Managed or Premises?, Pg 71

○ Strategy 2: Setting the standard, Pg 72

○ Strategy 3: Maximizing bandwidth for the AP and end user, Pg 73




● Goal 2: Erate Category 2, Pg 75

○ Strategy 1: Five year cycle #1, Pg 76




● Goal 3: Virtualization, Pg 80

○ Strategy 1: Production VMWare Host 10 GbE Upgrades, Pg 81

○ Strategy 2: Production VMWare Guests, Pg 81

○ Strategy 3: Production Standalone Servers, Pg 82

○ Strategy 4: Non-Production and Satellite Hosts, Pg 83

○ Strategy 5: Upgrade Paths, Pg 87

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● Goal 4: Telephone System, Pg 90

○ Strategy 1: New System Implementation and Cutover, Pg 91




● Goal 5: Safe and Secure Access, Pg 92

○ Strategy 1: 1:1 Policy and Filtering, Pg 93

○ Strategy 2: Hardening of Network Services, Pg 94

○ Strategy 3: Staff Procedures, Pg 95




● Goal 6: Public, Parent, Student Access, Pg 98

○ Strategy 1: Classroom Management Software, Pg 98

○ Strategy 2: Growth of Moodle, Pg 99

○ Strategy 3: Google Classroom and other Apps, Pg 100

○ Strategy 4: District Website and Social Media, Pg 101


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● Goal 7: Data Driven Decision Making, Pg 103

○ Strategy 1: Common Data Dashboard, Pg 103




● Goal 8: Service Improvement, Pg 106

○ Strategy 1: Personnel Distribution, Pg 106

○ Strategy 2: Cross Training, Pg 107

○ Strategy 3: Efficiency and Response Time, Pg 107




● Goal 9: Managing TCO, Pg 109

○ Strategy 1: Leasing, Pg 110

○ Strategy 2: Contracted Services, Pg 110

○ Strategy 3: Hazardous Waste Disposal/Technology Recycling, Pg 111

○ Strategy 4: Manufacturer Selection, Pg 112

○ Strategy 5: Life Expectancy of Equipment, Pg 113


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● Goal 10: Disaster Recovery, Pg 115

○ Strategy 1: Data Loss/Theft, Pg 116

○ Strategy 2: Student Data Recovery, Pg 117

○ Strategy 3: Staff Data Recovery, Pg 118

○ Strategy 4: Service Unit Recovery, Pg 119

○ Strategy 5: Fire-Stop Protection, Pg 119




Appendix A: Budget Summary by Account Code By Year, Pg 123

Appendix B: Ohio K12 Network Subsidy, Pg 125

Appendix C: Network Diagrams, Pg 126

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Section 1: Planning Logistics

Organization: Warren County JVSD

Last Modified by: Technology Committee

Technology Planning Committee Profile and Membership:

● David Cairns: Technology Specialist

● Kim Gambill: Director of Student Development

● Robin Frederick: Assistant Director of Secondary Education & Adult Education Cosmetology

Coordinator

● Louise Hayes: Adult Education Career Planning and Placement Coordinator

● Ken McHone: Adult Education Supervisor

● Jeff Piper: Instructor, Criminal Justice

● Lisa Powell: Instructor, Early Childhood Education

● Roy Broderick: Instructor, Project Lead the Way & Mathematics

● Winnie Milner: Media Center Specialist

● Brenda Jenks: EMIS Coordinator

● Kelly McGhee: Instructor, English

● Ken Wagner: Instructor, Information Technology

● Joe Behymer: Computer/Network Technician & Instructor, Information Technology

● Charles Nottingham: Network Administrator, Franklin City Schools

Technology Vision Statement: Our technology will be current, diverse, user-friendly, and enhance all

operations of the district by allowing us to:

● Provide quality academic and career/technical education that is aligned with state and

industry standards for all students

● Create future opportunities unique to each learner.

● Compete in a world/global market

● Ensure that we are the partner of choice within the educational and economic systems of our

community and state

Technology Mission Statement: Our technology plan will provide continuous guidance and direction

in the purchase, allocation and use of technology for the purpose of improving instruction and overall

student achievement for the district.

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Goals That Have Been Met:

● Improve accessibility to online WCCC technology services by 25% as measured by staff use of

Citrix (current average 30% of capacity), Sharepoint/Moodle CMS (25% of capacity), Google

Apps for Education (10% of capacity).

○ Currently all WCCC staff and students have Moodle and Google Apps for Education

Accounts.

○ Currently our Google Domain has 5,077 users with over 80,000 documents created.

The Google Domain has seen steady growth in utilization over the past three years.

We are seeing Secondary Student use during summer months, although less. We have

seen nearly a 300% increase in use from May 2014 to November 2014.

○ Currently our Moodle Environment activity logs are steadily increasing. In 2012, we

averaged 38,000 transactions per month, in 2013 average transactions per month

jumped to 93,000 and they are continuing to grow in 2014. Disk storage, database

size, RAM utilization, and the number of courses have all increased.

● Future-proof the network by increasing the amount of 10 Gbps rated fiber optic vertical

cabling (currently 20%) and position electronics for 10 Gbps backbone through selective

purchasing (currently 0%)

○ Our main building and administration offices now support 10 Gbps capability to each

wiring closet. Electronics upgrades will be rewritten into a new goal.

● Future-proof for increased wireless coverage/capability (currently 25 access points) to allow

for increased number of students with “one2one” technology (currently 23%)

○ Currently we have 75 access points deployed in our main building and other locations.

Coverage is 100% and fully 1:1 capable.

● Increase the participation of secondary students in one2one technology from 23% to 100%

through selective purchasing of hardware.

○ Our secondary students are currently 100% 1:1 with Chromebook technology. In

Adult Education, Cosmetology is the only 1:1 program which will spin a new goal.

Needs That Have Been Addressed:

● We have completed a three year phased upgrade of our virtual server environment. The

upgrade migrated three servers totaling 24 cores and 72 GB of memory to three servers

totaling 48 cores and 320 GB of memory. Old servers and a few donations have bolstered our

disaster recovery plan and have provided a non-production virtual environment for testing

and development.

● We have standardized to Moodle for our Learning Management system and Google Apps for

Education for our productivity suite with the secondary education 1:1 program.

● The increase in activity on our Google Apps domain and within our Moodle environment

indicates that staff is adopting and blending more instruction than ever before. Graphs are

still indicating an upward trend.

● Decisions have been made to move to the Google Apps cloud platform for students and to

standardize student technology to Chromebooks. For student curriculum requiring Microsoft

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Office, we have expanded our Citrix environment. We are excited about Google’s recent

announcement to offer Vault electronic communications archiving and anticipate making

policy changes to foster enhanced communication between faculty and students using these

tools.

● Our Storage Area Network has been upgraded to a 20 TB primary unit with 20 Gbps i/o and a

24 TB backup unit at our Greentree facility with 2 Gbps i/o that is now infused in our disaster

recovery plan. Our old SAN is now serving a role in our non-production virtual environment

for development and testing. Additional storage units exist running Open Source SAN

software for backup redundancy and for Technology Department shares.

● Retired Virtual Hosts have been augmented with donations from a business and industry

partner to create a robust disaster recovery environment at our Greentree facility which is 10

miles from our primary site.

● We have established a standardized hardware set for classrooms that will be ever-changing as

technology changes. Currently, teachers have the ability to customize room layout which is a

limiting concern for staffing changes and room reassignments. Budgetary constraints are also

a limiting factor with this need.

● Our wireless infrastructure has been upgraded and is now hosting 1:1 technology with no

known issues. The wireless bandwidth is now 300 mbps per access point and the switching is

all distributed 1 Gbps.

Goals that are no longer relevant

● Improve access to state of the art equipment and software by 10% for staff and students as

measured by average age of hardware (currently 3.3 years) and base software license

agreement (33% of MACs 2 generations old, 67% 1 generation old), (100% of Microsoft

software is up to date), (67% of Adobe software is 2 generations old, 33% is up to date).

● Measures of release date of operating systems are no longer relevant. Microsoft has

joined Apple in an annual minor release update that does not modify the platform.

We have moved the majority of student technology use to Google Chrome OS.

● Measure of average equipment age no longer have relevance. Our 1:1 model is a

student purchase program. Staff and public or Career Technical lab workstations are

current so long as they run Windows 8 and Office 2013 as of this writing. This is true

for 100% of machines in the district.

● Adobe has moved into a monthly payment subscription service and we have enrolled

in the MCOECN consortium for volume licensing for their products with a 3 year

subscription..

● The concept of “State of the Art” equipment and software no longer exists.

○ Equipment lines are no longer differentiated as mobile being laptop and

workstation being desktop. The blending of voice, tablet, laptop, interactive

displays have changed game of device selection

○ No longer are Adobe and Microsoft the “State of the Art” software providers

in their traditional market share. In fact both companies have migrated their

business plan into cloud services and subscription fees.

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● Increase participation in staff training program by 10%. (531 hours logged 2010-2011)

● We have had mandatory training in Google for our Chromebook 1:1 initiative. We had

voluntary participation in our Moodle LMS, all staff were required to post to their

Moodle Site and content is monitored by their supervisors. While offering an effective

Technology Professional Development for our staff remains a priority, our goals of

launching an effective LMS and 1:1 initiative have been met.

● Increase staff productivity (currently 800GB backed up storage) and Student Productivity

(currently 235 GB of backed up storage 2010-11) by 10%

● With the move to Google Apps for Education, storage is shifting into a blend of local

and cloud varieties. With Google recently announcing unlimited storage for Apps for

Education domains with vault archiving for free, we no longer see storage as a viable

measure of productivity.

Goals that still need to be addressed

Section 2: Curriculum Alignment & Instructional Integration

● Goal 1: Online, Interactive Assessment - 100% of student assessment will be online and/or

Interactive providing instant feedback to both students and staff regarding progress and

target areas for improvement based on the goals of the curriculum.

● Goal 2: Best Practices and Innovation New Technology - 100% of staff will remain current in

adopted best practices and standards for teaching and learning with integrated technology.

Innovative new technology initiatives will be recommended by the Technology Committee to

the Administration Team.

● Goal 3: Communication of Technology Initiatives - 100% of staff will have complete

knowledge of the district technology initiatives and standards available for curriculum

integration and instructional resources.

● Goal 4: Standardization of Hardware and Software Resources for Curriculum and Instruction -

100% of WCCC classrooms and labs will fit a minimum standard for hardware and software.

● Goal 5: Sustaining and Advancing the Mobile 1:1 Technology Initiative - Adult Education will

achieve 50% inclusion in the mobile 1:1 technology initiative and 100% of WCCC 1:1 devices

will be compatible with State assessments.

Section 3: Technology Policy, Leadership, and Administration

● Goal 1: Board Approved Policy - WCCC Board Policies regarding technology use and

procedures will be reviewed annually and will be compliant with new and/or pending

legislation.

● Goal 2: Technology Department Policies, Standards, and Use - An online Technology User

Manual for staff and students will be reviewed and updated annually.

● Goal 3: Structuring Technology Leadership - Technology leaders will be identified and asked

to take on a role in staff professional development.

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● Goal 4: Developing Technology Initiatives - WCCC will conduct an annual review of potential

technology initiatives recommended by the Technology Committee and the Technology

Director.

● Goal 5: Technology Budget Process - The recommended timeline for planning and purchasing

technology equipment and software will be utilized.

Section 3: Technology Infrastructure, Management, and Support

● Goal 1: Wireless Infrastructure - WCCC will sustain the existing wireless infrastructure for the

1:1 initiative and develop a plan to move forward with the 802.11AC standard.

● Goal 2: Erate Category 2 - WCCC will initiate the new 5 year budget cycle for Erate Category 2

funds to be used for network infrastructure upgrades or hosted services.

● Goal 3: Virtualization - WCCC will upgrade the VMWare production hosts and attached

storage to sustain the environment for 3 additional years.

● Goal 4: Telephone System - WCCC will upgrade/replace the telephone system.

● Goal 5: Safe and Secure Access - 100% of WCCC K-12 students will be trained on Internet

Safety and Cyberbullying to comply with Board policy and the Technology Department will

develop a technology security policy and procedures manual.

● Goal 6: Public, Parent, Student Access - Access to District information including the LMS,

student apps, websites, and social media sites will be visible and readily available to the

public, parents, and/or students.

● Goal 7: Data Driven Decision Making - A common data dashboard will be developed for staff

use of data to evaluate progress and make decisions for continuous improvement.

● Goal 8: Service Improvement - The Technology Department will improve efficiency and

response will average under 2 days to resolve trouble tickets.

● Goal 9: Managing TCO - WCCC will maintain the current level or reduce the total cost of

ownership of technology items purchased.

● Goal 10: Disaster Recovery - Technology Department staff will be cross-trained in disaster

recovery procedures and a policy/procedure will be developed to ensure sensitive data is

encrypted and secure.

Section 2: Curriculum Alignment & Instructional Integration

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Goal Titles:

● Online, Interactive Assessment

● Best Practices and Innovation New Technology

● Communication of Technology Initiatives

● Standardization of Hardware and Software Resources for Curriculum and Instruction

● Sustaining and Advancing the Mobile 1:1 Technology Initiative

Section 2 Comments:

The explosion of cloud services, miniaturization and accessibility of mobile hardware, the

development of high quality mobile apps, and the much improved quality of open source product

make this the most exciting time ever to lead an organization into technology options for the future.

Contributing factors to this excitement are fear of the unknown, fear of cost, fear of changing

methodology, and uncertainty as to which manufacturers, developers, and form factors will hold the

highest degree of sustainability. This becomes even more critical for Career Technical Centers who

must train students for the corporate environment and for industry certifications rather than merely

supporting standard academic subject areas.

If we teach the way we were taught, we are not properly serving our client. Our client lives in the

instant information age. Our client lives in the instant communication age. Our client lives in the

instant feedback age. Often, our client is plugged into an electronic social network that can be

unorganized, unproductive, and sometimes destructive. We need to plug our client into a highly

organized, productive education system that provides instant information, communication, and

feedback.

This system must be designed and infused into the curriculum. Instructional methodology must

support this revised curriculum. And there must be accountability to ensure that the design is

implemented. While the technology itself is exploding all around us, we cannot make rash or extreme

decisions. Staff must be trained and given a fair chance to communicate their needs. The

organizational vision must be one of small steps toward the overall district goals. Each small step

taken must carry the organization deeper into the design until it is fully implemented over time.

Secondary Education at WCCC has adopted Chromebooks as a 1:1 Technology strategy. This has been

a shift in methodology that required intensive planning and preparation for staff and students. This

initiative supplements rather than replaces career technical lab training equipment. Core academic

instructors have built their curriculum around the use of Google Drive, the learning management

system (Moodle), and Chrome OS. The underlying goal of this initiative is that students can learn

anywhere, anytime, and have instant access to the learning materials, activities, and assessments and

instant feedback on their progress. This opens the door for new instructional strategies such as

“flipped classroom”, deeper levels of blended instruction, and even online virtual instruction. WCCC

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has adopted Moodle as the learning management system providing central access for all students to

their work for all classes.

The current challenge for the 1:1 initiative lies with textbook publishers, several of which require

Windows or OSX driven applications to utilize their online texts. To combat this, WCCC has upgraded

the Citrix environment so that students can launch a Windows desktop on their Chromebook and

interact with these texts. WCCC currently provides up to 60 concurrent Citrix connections shared

between staff and students.

Adult Education has one full time program currently in a 1:1 initiative. Unfortunately, this program’s

new online curriculum (2014-15 version) requires Adobe Digital Editions, a software package that

requires Windows or OSX. To meet the needs of these students, WCCC is adopting a new cloud based

product line (November 2014) with very similar specification and price point to the Chromebook that

actually run Windows 8.1 with Bing. The new model purchased this year is the HP Stream 12.

Goal 1

Goal 1: Online, Interactive Assessment

Goal Type: Technology Alignment to Curriculum

Goal Title: Online, Interactive Assessment

Goal Description: 100% of student assessment will be online and/or Interactive providing instant

feedback to both students and staff regarding progress and target areas for improvement based on

the goals of the curriculum.

Needs Assessment: Expertise is essential for hardware and software to support integrating online

assessment into the curriculum. This includes:

Examview Professional

Moodle Assessment

Google Apps for Education

Google Classroom and other relevant Chrome Apps or Extensions

Generation of Question Banks for each academic department and Career Technical lab (Question

banks must be aligned to the Board Approved curriculum)

State assessments are online including CT Web Exams, PARCC and AIR Exams, and the new

requirement for all CT students to sit for an Industry Certification exam. Students need as much

practice as possible taking online, formative assessments. This is vital for both Secondary and Adult

Education students.

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Strategies ● Use of software to leverage online assessment for each module of the curriculum utilizing the

learning management system ● Career Technical Assessments for the State of Ohio (Secondary) ● Participation in Field Tests for Ohio Core Evaluation and Graduation Requirements ● Career Technical Industry Certifications ● Adult Education Online Assessment and Industry Certifications

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Use of software to leverage online assessment for each module of the curriculum

utilizing the learning management system.

Description: Continued training for staff, set expectation, and demand performance of the following:

1. Continue to create and secure Examview Question Banks that are aligned to the curriculum until

every module of curriculum has an associated bank.

2. Create multiple versions of departmentally approved formal and informal assessments from

Examview Question Banks that align with each curricular module of study.

3. Export Examview Question Banks for Web based assessment and posting those assessments to

the learning management system (Moodle).

4. Train staff and implement a common vehicle for capturing and evaluating student written work

electronically (mathematical). Tablet technology (USB, Chrome compatible) will be distributed to

Math, Chemistry, Physics, and teachers each year until each classroom has a set. They will be shared

by the department initially.

Note: This strategy applies to both the Secondary Education Division and the Adult & Community

Education Division

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Career Technical Assessments for the State of Ohio (Secondary)

Strategy 2 Description: In Ohio, all Career Technical (CT) programs are being converted from

programs to courses. This means that traditional year-long Junior/Senior CT programs are now

subdivided into four semester long courses. This also means that State web exams for CT programs

are being modified to reflect shorter testing cycles. Data from web exams will have a quicker

influence on instruction in the labs.

CT Teachers for programs moving to courses have a round table session to learn the new course

structure and objectives. They review the information and make decisions based on the course

selection under their CT program and the end of course assessment. The decisions and selections

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made are incorporated into Course of Study revisions for the CT Program. This is a group effort

involving administration and teaching staff, with special emphasis placed upon logistics for courses to

ensure the proper depth of instruction per course and to maintain test security.

Currently, Digital Design, Information Technology, Landscape Technology, Power Systems,

Veterinarian Science, and Welding programs have been converted to courses with instructors selected

content and assessment from Ohio Department of Education (ODE) offerings including online end of

course examinations. Each year, additional programs will be converted until 100% of our CT programs

are utilizing the course model with updated end of course examinations.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Participation in Field Tests for Ohio Core Evaluation and Graduation Requirements

Strategy 3 Description: The Ohio Graduation Test is slated to give way to online assessment through

PARCC and AIR. As currently designed, this will impact our juniors of 2017-18. To ensure

preparedness, the district has engaged in the Technology Readiness tool and is actively participating

in field tests for both PARCC and AIR. The district will continue to take advantage of field tests to

ensure that the testing mechanism is ready in 2017 when tests will impact our students. It is our

district’s intent to perform all testing on 1:1 devices.

Strategy 4

Strategy 4 Title: Career Technical Industry Certifications

Strategy 4 Description: The Ohio Department of Education report card for Career Technical Districts

will begin evaluating the district based on passage of Industry Certification by student completers

beginning the 2014-15 school year. The list of recognized Industry Certifications is still being

developed by ODE. WCCC has budgeted for and is requiring all program completers to sit for an

Industry Certification in their area of study. Most of these certifications have an online assessment

component and many also add a skills demonstration component. WCCC is currently in the process

of determining the best certification to map each CT program to and students will be sitting for

certification tests this spring.

WCCC is a testing center for Pearson Vue, ACT, and Certiport. Once we finalize the certification that

we want students to earn, we must figure out the logistics of testing an entire class of students

simultaneously during the school day. This does not require formal PD, but does require research,

communication, and decision making between teachers and Administration.

Strategy 5

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Strategy 5 Title: Adult Education Online Assessment and Industry Certifications

Strategy 5 Description: Adult Education has made tremendous gains in converting to online materials

and resources and getting associated assessment question banks into the Moodle Learning

Management System (Strategy 1). Adult Education programs are mapped to industry certifications.

This is part of their report card under the Ohio Board of Regents as well as accreditation standards of

the Council on Occupational Education (COE). Adult Education provides testing services through

both the Main Campus and the South Campus testing centers. Additionally, all full-time and many

part-time adult education students participate in ACT Workkeys assessments online as part of their

training and development. Adult Education will continue to determine the best fit industry credential

for every full-time student and leverage the WorkKeys assessment to create a program that fosters

student growth and development.

Professional Development Methods/Format

Staff will require workshops on:

● Creating and securing Examview Professional Question Banks

● Exporting from Examview and posting assessments to Moodle

● Using pen input devices with Chromebooks

A Train the trainer approach will be used for state testing. People serving in the responsible positions

will attend webinars and training sessions to ensure that the district has kept up to date with changes

as the new testing system evolves. Teachers will be provided instructions and the field tests

themselves serve as professional development for the future change in assessment.

The testing centers require proctor training for administration of exams for Pearson Vue, Certiport,

GED, ACT/Workkeys, CLEP, and other online testing companies. The testing center Administrator

works with the Technology Director to ensure that testing center equipment and the testing

environment meet and exceed the requirements for all testing companies. Training is involved when

new proctors are hired, when new testing companies are added to the center, or when existing

testing companies push changes and large scale upgrades. Training for the testing center

Administrator and Proctor is typically done via webinar.

Professional Development: How to Measure

The following measures will be taken:

● Effectiveness survey of all staff professional development surveys

● Resolution documentation on all issues with state core assessments

● Resolution documentation on all testing center service calls

Professional Development Support Goal

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100% of staff will be proficient using Examview Professional to create question banks that challenge

student’s critical thinking skills. 100% of staff will be proficient creating assessments from question

banks for each curriculum module and posting those assessments in the learning management

system.

Professional Development Positions Involved

Curriculum Director, Technology Director, Director, Assistant Director, Teacher

Where are we now? Adoption

Where do we want to be? Invention

Evaluation Process

The following statistical data will be collected and charted historically:

● Percentage of course assessments given online

● Test scores on end of course exams and web exams

● Passage rates of Industry Certification exams

Evaluation Description

Curriculum is re-adopted on a five year cycle. Checks will be made during curriculum review for the

development of question banks and use of online assessments. The results of student achievement

on State end of course exams and web exams is provided to the district as are results on PARCC and

AIR tests for the common core. Industry certification data will be collected as a percentage of

students passing for each the CT program. This data will be charted historically to provide the district

trend data which will be useful in strategic planning. Some of this data is also included on the District

report card from ODE and the Board of Regents.

Anticipated Outcome(s)

● Students and teachers will receive immediate feedback following an assessment activity.

Feedback data will help the teacher identify weak areas and target strategies for student

improvement in the curriculum.

● Use of pen input tablets will allow students in math, chemistry, and physics to write out

equations and solutions for teacher assessment. Google recently opened their API for pen

input and affordable tablets are now Chromebook compatible.

● All curriculum will include common outcomes for all teachers within each academic

department

● The district will remain current with changes made by ODE regarding CTE course content and

assessment. Students will gain additional practice with online assessment pertaining to their

CT program curriculum. The district will have historical data to see how students in each CT

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program are performing in addition to comparative data with students in similar programs

across the State.

● The district will be prepared for a smooth transition from OGT to the new State CORE

evaluations.

● WCCC Students will have the opportunity to graduate with an industry recognized certification

in their area of study.

Evaluation Positions Involved:

Superintendent, Curriculum Director, Director, Assistant Director, Technology Director, Teacher

Estimated Budget

2016: $34,250

2017: $34,250

2018: $34,250

Budget Notes:

Each year the budgeted amount reflects:

● Subscription to Examview Cloud Software - $8250 (Software - 516)

● Classroom set of Wacom Tablets for pen input - $1500 (Hardware - 644)

● Appropriation for the purchase of approved apps from the Chrome Web Store - $3,000

(Software - 516)

● Appropriation for the purchase of online texts and teaching resources - $20,000 (Textbooks -

520)

Goal 2

Goal 2: Best Practices and Innovative New Technology

Goal Type: Improving Teaching and Learning

Goal Title: Best Practices and Innovative New Technology

Goal Description: 100% of staff will remain current in adopted best practices and standards for

teaching and learning with integrated technology. Innovative new technology initiatives will be

recommended by the Technology Committee to the Administration Team.

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Needs Assessment: Staff must participate in the annual Technology PD program in order to stay

current in district adopted best practices and standards. All staff beyond 2 years in the district are

required to take 4 hours of Tech PD per the Master Agreement. Avenues for site visits, advisory

committee input, and technology conference attendance must be available with information sharing

as a follow up. WCCC uses a train the trainer approach when possible for new technology initiatives.

Currently, the secondary staff is utilizing 1:1 with Chromebooks effectively and their comfort level

using blended instruction continues to grow. Teachers across disciplines and within departments

are sharing resources and are developing technology driven multi-subject projects. Better consistency

in utilizing technology tools will help all teachers to adapt to new assignments. The next step for

Adult Education is to move more students into a 1:1 environment where appropriate.

Strategies:

● Curriculum Review and Lesson Planning

● Site Visits, Advisory Committees, and Technology Conferences

● Technology Professional Development Program

● Using Chrome Web Store Apps for Blended Instruction

● Using the Learning Management System for Blended Instruction

● Coordination Within and Across Departments and Career Clusters

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Curriculum Review and Lesson Planning

Strategy 1 Description: During the curriculum review process, district wide technology initiatives and

standards will be integrated into the curriculum document for each academic department and CT

Program. Teachers will incorporate those initiatives and standards into their lesson plans. Supervisors

will look for activities supporting initiatives and standards during the observation/evaluation process.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Site Visits, Advisory Committees, and Technology Conferences

Strategy 2 Description: Currently, key staff attend technology conferences. More staff needs to be

involved.

Every year, each advisory committee meets at least twice to recommend curricular and programming

changes. The input from these committees needs to include technology as a focus.

Getting staff involved visiting other CTC and/or comprehensive districts to see how others are using

technology integration and innovation would provide valuable input to our own continuous

improvement plan. Regional collaboration and systemic review of current practice would help to

ensure that the blending of technology into instruction is meaningful.

22


Finally, a vehicle is necessary for staff to share the information gathered by their advisory committees,

site visits, and technology conferences to the Technology Committee. The Technology Committee

then makes recommendations to the Administration team for adoption of initiatives and standards.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Technology Professional Development Program

Strategy 3 Description: The Technology Director will prepare an annual Technology Professional

Development Program highlighting district initiatives and standards. The workshops included will be

led by district staff and/or hired consultants. Staff will have a vehicle through meetings and survey to

provide input into the offerings of the Professional Development Program. District led initiatives will

take top priority for the Professional Development program. The District may make use of waiver

days if the scope of an initiative requires intensive training.

Strategy 4

Strategy 4 Title: Using Chrome Web Store Apps for Blended Instruction

Strategy 4 Description: Our staff is new to the 1:1 initiative with Chromebook technology. They have

already adopted Peardeck as a great Web Store app for interactive lessons and we have purchased a 3

year license for that software. Career technical Instructors are beginning to look at the Web Store for

apps that are relative to their teaching area. We must continue to monitor the Web Store on a

regular basis for new apps that can be leveraged to increase and improve our level of blended

instruction for academic, career technical, and cross disciplinary activities.

Strategy 5

Strategy 5 Title: Using the Learning Management System (LMS) for Blended Instruction

Strategy 5 Description: WCCC’s LMS is Moodle. Moodle was chosen for its open source free platform

and robust capability. The goal of the LMS is to provide a single online landing zone where students

can access content, take assessments, and turn in work for all of their classes. Google Classroom

provides a more user friendly, scaled down LMS per class for teachers, but does not offer that single

landing zone which is important for WCCC students. We are training teachers for Google Classroom

with the understanding that they link their students to Google Classroom from Moodle. Our goal for

23


Moodle is that students have access via 1:1 technology to access and be productive with their courses

anytime, anywhere. Another aspect of this strategy is for the LMS to foster collaboration and sharing

among teachers as activities and modules within the LMS can be exported and shared between

teachers and classes. The LMS also offers tutors and special needs coordinators the ability to interact

with course materials as non-editing teachers as they assist students. Ultimately, this strategy should

in time morph into focus on the “Flipped Classroom” rather than blended instruction.

Strategy 6

Strategy 6 Title: Coordination Within and Across Departments and Career Clusters

Strategy 6 Description: It is easy as a teacher to bring students into your world, close the door, and

make the most of your time sealed out from the rest of the district. It is a much greater challenge for a

teacher to know what the rest of their student's day is like, know what they are doing in other classes,

and work with their other teachers on common strategies, assessments, and lessons. It is even more

difficult to take this concept beyond the teacher's own students and take ownership of those lessons

for all students taking classes within an academic department and a career cluster.

WCCC has implemented common final assessments for all academic areas. This has forced each

department to come together, create strategies, and work together with students on common

material.

To take WCCC to the next level, new mandates must be made by the administration team to step

teaching staff into increased coordination. Recommended steps include:

1. Common academic department assessments, all modules

2. Career cluster cross training with teacher sharing/switching

3. Cross departmental academic projects where Math, Science, Social Studies, and English teachers

work with students on a common project

4. Cross curricular projects where Math, Science, Social Studies, English and the CT Program teachers

work with students on a common project

5. A common class structure within the LMS (Moodle) for each academic area so that course content

can easily be handed off between teachers including substitutes.

This type of work is completely dependent on the following technology concepts:

· Online workspaces accessible by multiple teachers and by students (Google Docs)

· Online materials and resources for teachers to communicate with students (Google Docs and

Moodle)

· Online productivity tools so that students can save their work and access it anytime, anywhere

(Google Docs)

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During the curriculum review process, the Director of Curriculum meets with departments and career

technical program instructors to review the process and set guidelines for the review process.

Our technology Professional Development (PD) Program has been established for nine years and it

changes annually to meet the needs of current initiatives. The current format includes 2 hour evening

workshops, four hour Saturday workshops, and sequences of 2 hour workshops in a series. Current

topics include: Google Apps for Education (Series), Google Classroom, Moodle, Essential Chrome Apps

(Audio Tools, Diigo, Pixlr, WeVideo, Etc), Presentations with Prezi, Digital Storytelling, E-Portfolios,

Using Chromebooks in the Classroom, INFOhio, The Flipped Classroom, Online Assessment, and

Interactive Lessons with Peardeck.

If an app to be purchased from the Chrome Web Store is specific to a program or career technical

area, training will be provided for the identified instructors through the app publisher or the

Technology Department. If the app is a global initiative, such as Peardeck, it will be offered in the

Technology Professional Development Program.

We have thoroughly exhausted training in Moodle for current staff. However, staff changes through

attrition and new staff members do require training which will be provided through the Technology

Professional Development Program. The majority of staff are at the level of expertise with Moodle

that they are collaborating and sharing activities and resources and building toward common blended

courses within disciplines. PD on Moodle and Google needs to shift from a formal “how to” and into a

“I didn’t know it could do that” for advanced development. The format will continue to be voluntary

workshop.





100% of staff will attend more than 4 hours of technology professional development training.

100% of teaching staff will utilize the LMS, Moodle, for all resources and activities in their classroom.



Where are we now? Adaptation

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Evaluation Process

● Curriculum review undergoes advisory review and Board approval

● Tally of staff attending site visits and technology conferences

● Monitoring participation in the technology PD Program

● Monitoring the use of Chrome Web Store apps

● Collection of statistical data on use of the LMS


The curriculum document is generated by teaching staff under the direction of the Curriculum

Director. The Advisory Committee for the CT program must sign off on the curriculum document. The

Curriculum Director takes the finished document to the Board of Education for review and approval.

The supervisor evaluates the teacher's delivery.

Data will be collected by tracking of the number of staff attending site visits, technology conferences,

and technology PD workshops. Additional data to be collected includes input received Advisory

Committees, site visits, and technology conferences and staff input from survey data on PD

Workshops. The overall success of the PD Program will be evaluated by monitoring participation in

the technology PD program. Staff input and survey data will be used by the Technology Director to

determine the relevance of each workshop.

Data regarding the number of teachers and the use of purchased Chrome Web Store apps will be

monitored by the Technology Director and will be used to determine if renewal is appropriate.

Statistical data can be collected from the LMS system on the global level for use and per instructor

and per course taught by instructor. Supervisors will be able to track use of the LMS through the

evaluation process and by logging in to monitor development by the teacher.


● Teacher generated curriculum will remain current with district technology initiatives and

standards.

● Teacher lesson plans and delivery will include those initiatives and standards.

● Students will receive instruction with unified and common methodology.

● The District will identify new innovations and potential initiatives.

● The district will understand how other districts are integrating and using technology and will

be proactive in generating new initiatives.

● The technology PD Program will be well attended and relevant to support teachers in blending

technology into instruction and learning.

● Teaching staff will have adequate resources and applications to make blended instruction

successful.

● Blended learning will improve and be more prevalent in the classroom. Students will be

engaged utilizing the interactivity that their Chromebook provides.

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Estimated Budget

2016: $21,500

2017: $21,500

2018: $21,500

Budget Notes:


● Fees for attendance at technology conferences and substitute staff for site visits

(Professional Development - 432)

● Instructional services fees for technology PD workshops (Professional Development - 414)

● Purchasing Apps from the Chrome Web Store (Software - 516)

Goal 3

Goal: Communication of Technology Initiatives


Goal Title: Communication of Technology Initiatives

Goal Description: 100% of staff will have complete knowledge of the district technology initiatives

and standards available for curriculum integration and instructional resources.

Needs Assessment:

• Timely communication of initiatives and standards

• Technology Professional Development Program

• Technology Purchasing Process

• Advisory Committee communication

Strategies:

Technology Department FAQ and Bulletin

Technology Purchasing Process

Staff Communication to Advisory Committees

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Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Technology Department FAQ and Bulletin

Strategy 1 Description: The Technology Department will continue development of an online FAQ to

assist staff in finding answers to commonly asked questions. The Technology Department will also

generate a periodical bulletin informing staff of new initiatives, progress on existing initiatives, and

initiatives under investigation. The bulletin will be electronic and will include links to multimedia and

printed tutorials.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Technology Purchasing Process

Strategy 2 Description: The Technology Director will communicate with each department and CT

instructional area prior to beginning the purchase process for the next fiscal year. Discussion will

include integration ideas, needs assessment, and potential technology initiatives.

The purchasing process will be:

● Oct - Jan: Departmental meetings to determine purchasing needs. Training continues on new

purchases and initiatives.

● February: Requests for technology purchases submitted online

● March: Technology Director, Curriculum Director, and Director work to accept or reject each

request and determine the budget

● April: The general fund budget recommendation is submitted to the Superintendent and

Treasurer. Staff is updated.

● May: The budget is approved and requests for quote are generated by the Technology

Director

● June: Requisitions are submitted based on quotes

● July - September: Items are received, deployed, and training is offered as needed

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Staff Communication to Advisory Committees

Strategy 3 Description: Advisory Committees are a 2-way street of communication. They provide

insight into new technology innovations in business and industry that we need to incorporate into our

curriculum and instruction. It is also our staff's responsibility to keep the Advisory Committee

informed of district technology initiatives and standards so that they have a working knowledge of

28


what exists and how it can be expanded and improved upon. The Advisory Committee meeting

agenda format will include updates from staff to the Advisory Committee about technology.


Anytime new equipment or software is purchased for a technology initiative, training is required.

Workshops will be generated around district wide initiatives. Private sessions will be set up for

departmental or CT Program level purchases. Sessions may involve vendor led instruction.





100% of teaching staff will be adequately prepared to use new equipment and software purchased for

delivery of their curriculum.



Evaluation Process

Statistical data will be gathered for:

● The growth rate of the technology FAQ

● The frequency of the technology bulletin

● Purchasing requests are compiled into document for approval by the Director

● Advisory Committee meeting minutes are collected, compiled, and reviewed.


The growth rate of the technology FAQ will be monitored. The frequency of the technology bulletin

will also be monitored.

The purchasing process will be evaluated by the effectiveness of the budget to meet the needs of the

District. Staff is given input, Directors make decisions, the Technology Department secures approved

purchases and implements them with training when necessary.

Minutes from Advisory meetings will be examined to ensure that teaching staff are adequately

informing their Committee members of technology initiatives and standards.

29



● Staff will be better informed about district technology initiatives and resources

● Increase in technology integration into instructional methods

● Student learning should improve

● Staff has input and direction into the planning and purchasing process

● New ideas are generated for new technology initiatives

● Bulk purchasing leads to deeper discounts

● Advisory Committee members will be aware of district technology initiatives and standards

which will help them to guide our programs and make informed recommendations for

continuous improvement.





Estimated Budget

2016: $0

2017: $0

2018: $0

Budget Notes:

The strategies for this goal do not involve a financial obligation to the District

Goal 4

Goal 4: Standardization of Hardware and Software Resources for Curriculum and Instruction


Goal Title: Standardization of Hardware and Software Resources

Goal Description:

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100% of WCCC classrooms and labs will fit a minimum standard for hardware and software.

Needs Assessment:

Minimum hardware standards must be established annually with emphasis on mobility and flexibility.

Minimum software standards must be established annually with emphasis on paperless classrooms

and interactive experiences for students. Hardware and Software must be kept up to date.

Strategies:

Standardization of Hardware – Computers for Offices, Career Technical Labs, and Public Computer

Labs

Standardization of Hardware/Software – 1:1 Initiative

Standardization of Hardware – Multimedia Audio/Video

Standardization of Software – End User

Standardization of Software – Cloud Services

Standardization of Software – Learning Management System

Standardization of Software – Remote Access

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Standardization of Hardware – Computers for Offices, Career Technical Labs, and

Public Computer Labs

Strategy 1 Description: WCCC has reached a goal of 100% one to one computing for main-campus

secondary students. The purpose of this initiative is to provide students access to online resources

and materials anytime, anywhere. The emphasis on this initiative lies in the academic realm. WCCC

does not have sufficient funds to utilize mobile technology in all areas of Career Technical study.

Therefore, Career Technical labs with computer driven curriculum must be on a refresh cycle to keep

programs current with software requirements and hardware efficiency.

Current secondary programs that are computer lab driven include Legal Office Technology (25),

Information Technology (21 Main Campus, 31 Kings, 23 Springboro, 23 Little Miami), Digital Design (25

Main Campus, 25 Springboro, 62 Kings, 31 Little Miami), Graphic Arts (26), Landscape Technology (25),

Business Technology (28 Little Miami, 31 Kings), Gateway to Success (14 Main Campus, 10 One Stop),

Project Lead the Way (27 Fenwick, 26 Springboro, 29 Franklin, 25 Lebanon), Gateway to College (31

Fenwick, 31 Kings), Medical Office Technology (28 Greentree), Aviation (20), Project Search (16

Otterbein), Teacher Academy (12 Lebanon), Senior Internship (26 Little Miami), Greentree Mobile Cart

(20), Media Center Mobile Carts (60), and Intervention (14).

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Current Adult Education programs often share Secondary equipment during evening hours. Adult

Education Career Technical labs that are independent of Secondary and computer lab driven include

Industrial Technology (30), ABLE (40 One Stop, 10 Franklin library), Information Technology Cisco (15),

Information Technology Comptia (15), Information Technology Microsoft (15), Autocad (19), ESOL

(20), Adult Ed Mobile Cart (20), and Testing Center (20 Main Campus, 20 South Campus).

Public computer labs are being discussed for the main campus for potential decommission due to the

success of the 1:1 initiative. Current public computer lab configurations are TEC (28), Lab 462 (28),

Lab 520 (25), Lab 219 (28) and Lab 216 (31). When teachers do need print capability or to work in a

computer lab for a software resource, the minimum public computer lab size should be 32.

Unfortunately, the square footage of our rooms does not accommodate this number. Decisions will

be made regarding the number and size of the public computer labs to be retained moving forward.

State Testing is not currently an issue as assessments are currently Chromebook compatible under our

1:1 program. Also under consideration for public computer labs is the need for a full powered

computer or a cloud-based small footprint computer (Raspberry Pi/Hummingbird or

Chromebox/Streambox or new HDMI Stick-type computers). The onset of these devices in 2014 have

rendered sustaining old technology units with large footprints via Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

impractical due to the high cost of Licensing the back end.

Teacher desktops and employee offices are still Microsoft driven computers. The total number of

these machines is currently 213.

There will be three minimum standards for computer hardware replacement for the 2015-16 school

year:

Lightweight Internet Cloud Computer

Formfactor: Chromebox/Stream Footprint or 12” Laptop

Intel Celeron N Series Processor

2 GB Memory

30 Gb Internal Storage

Operating System: Chrome OS or Windows with Bing

Anticipated Cost: $239 each

Locations: Gateway to College (Kings), Project Search, Teacher Academy, ABLE (Franklin Library)

Total Machines Anticipated: 69

Life Cycle: 4 years

Anticipated 4 year budget: $16,491.00

Average Annual Budget: $4,122.75

Standard Duty Workstation

FormFactor: NUC or Mini Tower (MAtx) Footprint or Mobile Laptop 14 – 15.6”

Intel Core I3/I5 processor

8 GB Memory

500 GB Internal Storage, SSD Preferred

32


Intel Chipset Northbridge

Operating System: Windows, OSX, or Linux

Anticipated Cost: $750

Locations: Legal Office Tech, Information Technology, Landscape Technology, Business Technology,

Gateway to Success, Gateway to College (Fenwick), Medical Office Technology, Aviation, Senior

Internship (Little Miami), Greentree Mobile Cart, Media Center Mobile Carts, Intervention, Adult

Industrial, ABLE (One Stop), Adult IT Cisco, Adult IT Comptia, Adult IT Microsoft, Adult Autocad, Adult

ESOL, Adult Mobile Cart, Adult Testing Center, TEC Lab, Lab 462, Lab 520, Lab 219, Lab 216, Employee

Desktops


Life Cycle: 6 years



Heavy Duty Workstation

Form Factor: Mid-tower (MAtx or ATX) Footprint

Intel Core I5/I7 Processor

16 GB Memory

1 TB Internal Storage, SSD for OS Preferred

Intel Chipset Northbridge

Operating System: Windows, OSX

Anticipated Cost: $1000

Locations: Digital Design, Graphic Arts, Project Lead the Way, Technology Department Desktops


Life Cycle: 6 years



Classroom teacher workstations shall be Multimedia centers for the classroom with dual screens, the

second screen shall be mirrored to the large format presentation display. The computer serves as the

DVD Player. VHS is no longer supported. The computer is wired to a stereo amplifier and multimedia

speakers that fill the room. The large format presentation display is either a USB Smart Whiteboard

device, a pull-down screen, an LED TV, or an Interactive LED TV.

WCCC is committed to offering state of the art hardware for students. If quantity exceeds budget for

new computers, off-lease computers are purchased with a modified expected lifecycle. Lease

purchase agreements are commonly used to reduce the financial burden for any given fiscal year.

The Technology Department will publish a "how to use" guide for each classroom/lab environment

based on the deployed hardware.

33


Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Standardization of Hardware/Software – 1:1 Initiative

Strategy 2 Description: WCCC has reached a goal of 100% one to one computing for main-campus

secondary students. The target cost for this initiative is $240 per unit plus $35 for Chrome OS

Management plus $20 per carrying bag and $45 for accidental damage insurance. In the first year,

WCCC ran the initiative with Chromebooks. New Windows based products have hit the market this

year and must be considered. We do have one program, Cosmetology, who's online textbook is

dependent on Adobe Digital Editions which requires Windows, Android, Apple IOS, or Apple OSX and

is not supported on Chromebook. We do not want to split our environment or have part of our

student body on a separate environment. To bridge this gap we have provided Citrix access to a

Windows Desktop on Cosmetology student Chromebooks. The 1:1 technology will remain

Chromebook for the 2015-16 school year and will be evaluated each year. One key to the selection of

the hardware unit is compatibility with State testing.

As a Career Technical district, we have level 1 and level 2 students. Students receive their

Chromebook at the beginning of their Level 1 school year. The Chromebook has a welcome letter

with instructions from the Technology Department Staff and is enrolled in the WCCC Google

management domain apps.mywccc.org. Students are required to bring the Chromebook to school

every day and will keep the Chromebook during the summer months between their level 1 and level 2

year. At the end of the student’s level 2 school year, the Chromebook is unenrolled from the WCCC

Google management domain giving the student full ownership of the device.

The cost of the accidental insurance is picked up by the District. The cost of the Chromebook,

Management, and bag is split between the student (Technology Fee) and the District. Students taking

a Level 1 and Level 2 program have their fee amount split over two years. Students taking a level 2

only program pay their fee portion in one year. If the District has surplus gently used Chromebooks

from the previous year, they are offered to students selected by the Director at a reduced rate.

Currently, at the request of the Director, Facebook and Twitter are blocked apps from within Google

management. The Director determines which apps to be blocked and reserves the right to block

additional apps at any time. When the student graduates and the Chromebook is unenrolled from

Google management, these apps are no longer blocked.

Student Google accounts are kept alive for Alumni so long as they log into their account at least once

per year. The Technology Department will run a report during the month of July and those accounts

inactive for over a year are purged from the Google domain.

The Technology Department maintains extra Chromebooks that are issued as loaner machines when a

student Chromebook is lost, stolen, or damaged requiring repair. Accidental damage insurance does

not cover loss or theft. Students who have lost their Chromebook are required to purchase an

additional Chromebook with the full amount added to their fees. Students who have had their

34


Chromebook stolen are required to file a police report which must include the serial number of the

unit. They are also required to purchase a replacement with the full amount added to their fees.

Repair of Chromebooks may take place in house or by the holder of the Insurance Policy depending

on the extent of the damage. The District used SquareTrade insurance for the 2014-15 school year.

The Technology Department keeps spare chargers and screens for repair. If a student requires a

replacement charger, the replacement amount is billed to fees. Each teacher is given a 6 foot and a

10 foot power strip and five extra chargers for charging stations in their classroom. Each teacher who

does not have computers in their environment (academic and CT with non-computer driven

curriculum) have five Chrome Kiosk computers for loaners. Chrome Kiosk computers are netbooks

that are configured with automatic logon and Group Policy to only allow Internet Access through

Chrome which essentially makes them a Chromebook. Students forgetting their Chromebook are

required to ask each teacher throughout the day for a Chrome Kiosk to borrow.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Standardization of Hardware - Multimedia Audio/Video

Strategy 3 Description:

WCCC currently uses Smart Technologies Smartboards, Projection w/screen, Interactive LED Panels,

and Non-Interactive LED Panels in academic classrooms and conducive CT Labs for the large screen

multimedia display. WCCC has found the total cost of ownership is greater for LED displays due to

the bulb/filter cycle in projectors and the longevity of the unit. Smart Technologies has moved into a

software by subscription model and their software is not performing well with the newest versions of

Windows and OSX. With these factors considered, WCCC has made the decision to disinvest in Smart

Technologies hardware over an extended period of time related to refresh cycles. WCCC has also

made the decision to disinvest in projection technology except in environments where an extra-large

display is warranted (90” diagonal or larger). Projectors will continue to be replaced as needed if a

pre-existing Smart Technologies whiteboard remains viable.

Smart Technologies boards are up to 87” diagonally. The minimum standard for an LED display shall

be 60” diagonally with 70” or higher preferred. LED displays need not be “Smart” as the computer

they are connected to will have full Internet capability.

Classrooms shall have zoned lighting such that the row of lights directly over the large screen display

can be turned off with the remainder of the classroom remaining illuminated.

In environments that warrant projection for diagonal size greater than can be reasonably be provided

by LED TV, projectors shall be ceiling mounted with zoned lighting to provide a clean projection path

to the screen. WCCC prefers Viewsonic or Epson projectors. Newer projection technologies with

35


data over USB and network are enticing, but the maximum resolution for this technology by any

manufacturer is 1600x1200 falling short of 1080P HD. This type of technology could replace

interactivity at the display itself and put full interactivity at the hands of the teacher using an

inexpensive tablet app with stylus with the added benefit of wireless transmission.

The minimum standard for new standard-throw projectors shall be:

· 2700 ANSI Lumens, 1920x1080 resolution capable

· Adjustable throw range between 8' and 12' for an 87" diagonal image

· 1 HDMI port (audio and video)

· 1 VGA or DVI port with audio in

· Audio port out

The minimum standard for new standard-throw projectors is shall be:

· 2700 ANSI Lumens, WXGA native, 1280x800 native resolution or higher

· 1 HDMI port (audio and video)

· 1 VGA or DVI port with audio in

· Audio port out

HDMI cabling from the workstation video card can be up to 40'. If longer distances are required, a

digital audio/video balun shall be used. All projectors shall be mounted to a suspended mount plate

with separate electrical and multimedia cross-connect boxes that shall include a minimum of two

category 6 or higher twisted pair runs. Bulk cable pass-through plates are acceptable. To avoid

ground-loop potential, the electrical outlet of the projector shall be on the same circuit and ground as

the control workstation.

Audio for the classroom shall consist of a dedicated audio amplifier with a minimum of two stereo

RCA inputs. Amplifiers must be 4/8 ohm compatible for either two or four speaker systems and must

be a minimum of 40 watts RMS. Amplifiers must have a minimum of two channel inputs with one

dedicated to the control computer and the other available for other multimedia devices. Amplifiers

must have a microphone input for Instructor amplification. The microphone input must be mixed

over the other inputs so that the instructor can narrate on top of video and other types of input.

Instructor amplification can be provided by a pendant, lapel, or neck wrap microphone with a wireless

receiver. Microphone technology may be UHF/VHF or infrared and must not have cross-classroom

interference. Volume and input control for the amplifier must be conveniently accessible for the

teacher either manually or through digital control. Speakers may be wall mounted or ceiling

mounted and must be rated for an equivalent or higher wattage than the amplifier not to exceed 1.5

times the wattage of the amplifier. Speaker wire must be a minimum of 18 AWG plenum rated

two-conductor with shielding optional.

The minimum standard for new multimedia control workstations shall be:

HD Graphics capable of 1920 x 1080 resolution or higher

Intel Core I3 processor

36


8 GB RAM

USB Inputs for document camera, wireless keyboard/mouse

Bluetooth 2.0 or higher

Wireless and wired Ethernet

BluRay Drive

If this control workstation is driving an interactive large screen display, nothing more is required. If it

is driving a non-interactive large screen display, this device shall provide interactivity where a teacher

can mark up or overlay/layer content on the display. It is preferred that this solution be mobile,

visible by the teacher as they interact, and not require the teacher to turn away from his/her

audience. It is not desired for this interactive component to be engaged at the teacher desk with the

teacher in a sitting position.

Interactive large screen displays shall include existing Smartboards and Interactive LED TVs with

appropriate Interactive software. These displays must be multi-touch, multi-user, have pen input,

and connect to the control workstation via USB. The associated software should have a mobile app

that can be run on Android or IOS over wireless to allow the teacher to interact with the display from

an inexpensive tablet. When using mobile tablets, teachers want to be able to see the display as they

write rather than having to turn their back on their audience. Unfortunately, fully Interactive

projectors are not desired as they do not alleviate the ongoing cost of bulb replacement or prevent

the teacher from having to turn his/her back to their audience.It is more expensive to have

interactivity built into the large screen display than the control workstation. Prices may decline over

the lifetime of this plan and resolutions for projected data over wireless may improve. The

multimedia control workstation may serve as the primary teacher workstation when it is driving an

interactive large screen display.

An alternative option with a lighter price tag is a teacher podium or lectern with a control workstation

and an interactive monitor that is mirrored to the large screen display. This could accomplished with

a multi-touch monitor with pen input with 1920 x 1080 resolution capability. The workstation and

monitor could also be a combined unit in a fully powered tablet with multi-touch and pen input. The

negative of this solution is that it is not portable do to the requirement of cabling. The positive to this

solution is that the teacher never has to turn their back on their audience. Under this scenario, the

teacher would have a separate workstation for productivity and planning.

Estimating cost for this strategy based on the highest cost solution would place 75 classrooms/labs

with an Interactive LED TV at $5500 each and a lifespan of ten years.

Anticipated 10 year budget: $412,500

Average Annual Budget: $41,250

Strategy 4

Strategy 4 Title: Standardization of Software - End User


37


WCCC is currently 85% PC based. Dependence on Microsoft platforms is waning with advances in

cloud computing and open source projects. However, as a CTC, many of our programs must train

students for business standards which currently dictates the Microsoft platform. WCCC holds an

annual subscription to Microsoft Volume license service under the OECN consortium with CDWG as

the reseller.

The minimum computer environment for 2014-15 shall be Windows 8 Professional or Mac OSX

Yosemite, Microsoft Office 2013 (Windows) or 2012 (MAC), Adobe Acrobat 11 Professional and Adobe

Creative Cloud 2014 (licensed under MCOECN), VLC Player, Audacity, 7Zip (Windows), Flash, Java, and

Examview Professional (teacher computers only), Blender, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome

From the base image, custom software may be desired for each department, CT program, office, or

computer lab based on need. All software licensing must flow through the Technology Director for

tracking.

Cost estimation for this strategy includes renewal of the Microsoft and the Adobe Volume License

Agreement.

Strategy 5

Strategy 5 Title: Standardization of Software - Cloud Services


As a District, WCCC has had greater success with Google Apps for Education and intends to dedicate

off campus productivity to this cloud service. With Google Apps for Education students get a gmail

account entered into the apps.mywccc.org domain with global catalog, Google Drive, Google Docs,,

access to shared workspaces by teachers and peers, and unlimited online storage. Teachers have

access to YouTube so that they can upload video lessons for student playback anytime, anywhere.

With our 1:1 initiative adoption of Chrome OS, the Chrome Web Store is the general location for

finding global apps for teachers and students. We have made a three year investment with PearDeck,

an app that allows teacher/student interactivity with student response, instant feedback, and full

integration with Google Drive.

We are also offering training for the new Google Classroom. While Classroom has the ability to serve

as a rudimentary Learning Management system, we are still requiring staff to use the District adopted

LMS, Moodle, as the landing page so that all students have that one stop location for all of their

classes. Teachers deciding to utilize Google Classroom are expected to link to their Classroom from

Moodle.

38


WCC believes in a try and train before you buy. We investigate new cloud computing initiatives

annually and make informed decisions. Quality of service and safety are the two most important

factors in choosing to pay for a cloud service.

It is our goal to engage our students and provide them with access to their work, learning materials,

and resources anytime anywhere.

Strategy 6

Strategy 6 Title: Standardization of Software - Learning Management System


Moodle was adopted as the District’s Course Learning Management System in 2013. Moodle provides

online access for all students and teachers to all of their course responsibilities. Features included

are: private storage, custom profile with interests, calendaring for the course, chat, instant feedback,

messaging (one to many), email access, and collaboration.

Block elements for Moodle courses include direct RSS feeds from content area websites, forums,

news and upcoming events, blogging, comments for students, and glossary. Members of student

services are given the role of non-editing teachers giving them full access to course content for

tutoring, special needs accommodations, and reporting. Administrative staff are also given the role

of non-editing teachers for access in evaluating teachers.

Moodle offers Teacher resources through web browser access including books, files, folders, static

text labels with hypertext links, and URLs. Teachers can organize and compact their resources by

adding additional pages to the course such that landing page links to subsequent content pages.

Moodle resources are fully integrated with Google Drive and students and staff have full access to

Drive, Picasa, and Youtube directly from within Moodle.

Moodle offers Teacher activities for graded student work including assignments, chat, choice

(bellwork), forums, glossary, lessons, assessment, surveys, wiki, and workshops. All graded work can

be submitted interactively within the activity or via electronic file. Students are given interactive

feedback from the teacher on their graded work.

Moodle offers a gradebook. Adult Education teachers and students use the gradebook as their means

of monitoring student progress through assessments and then transfer grades to their Student

Manager database. Secondary Instructors are to hide the Moodle Gradebook from their students as it

is not meant to replace the District adopted Progress Book online gradebook which both students and

parents have access to. Secondary teachers can use the Moodle gradebook to collect scores and

transfer them to Progress Book.

39


Moodle provides the teacher the ability to hide any resource or item. This keeps the interface clean

for students and minimizing scrolling. Teachers can also highlight the current block of study in

Moodle so that it is instantly visible. Moodle scales well for mobile devices as a desktop version and

there is also a mobile app on IOS and Android platforms.

Ohio offers Districts the ability to extend the school calamity days by a count of three if they can

demonstrate they are effectively providing three days worth of online student instruction. WCCC

requires all instructors to have three “Blizzard Bag” assignments ready to go and posted online in

October to ensure that all teachers are in compliance with district policy.

Currently, Moodle is used only for in person attended courses. The potential exists for Moodle to be

utilized to deliver a fully functioning online course.

All WCCC courses are expected to have their landing page be on Moodle. This way, when a student

logs into Moodle, they are greeted with all of the courses they are currently enrolled in at WCCC. The

only exceptions to this lies with District adopted curriculum that has a required separate LMS.

Currently programs falling under this category include Project Lead the Way and Adult Education

Medical Programs. Even under this exception, teachers are encouraged to place content in Moodle

and link to the required LMS from their Moodle course page.

Moodle has been fully adopted by Secondary Education and 80% of Adult Education. For Adult

Education, the Coordinator for the career technical discipline is assigned the role of teacher as well as

part/full time instructors. The Technology Department has consistently offered assistance in

transitioning courses to online versions of texts, converting assessments and written work into digital

format, and setting up Moodle courses according to the teacher’s/coordinator’s design. The

Technology Department will continue to offer these services.

Moodle offers teachers the ability to backup entire courses or individual activities and resources

without student data. Backup files are generated in zip format. Teachers can then share those

courses, activities, or resources with other teachers who can import them into their existing Moodle

courses. In this manner, teacher collaboration is fostered.

Strategy 7

Strategy 7 Title: Standardization of Software - Remote Access


Currently, staff has remote access to school systems and network services including but not limited to

storage and email. Administrators and select staff with specialty roles enjoy VPN access with RDP

connections to their desktop computer (which is always on, UPS protected) via their mobile or home

computer. VPN Access also provides mobile/home access to OECN ITC (Southwest Ohio Computer

40


Association) services. All staff enjoys Citrix access from their home computer, smartphone, and/or

tablet.

The current Citrix environment has 60 concurrent licenses and has proven effective for off-campus

employees even during normal working hours. Citrix services can be accessed by application or a

desktop session. Through a desktop session, staff is mapped to their usual network drives, has access

to local drives, and has access to software and printers as if they were at work.

WCCC does not plan to extend the Citrix initiative to all students. Rather, development of Google Apps

for Education puts students into the cloud with the ability to move files and interact with teachers

anywhere they have an Internet Connection. Programs whose online text or curriculum require

Windows access and whose students are limited to Chrome OS by the 1:1 initiative are provided Citrix

access. Currently this is only the Cosmetology career technical program whose online textbook

requires Adobe Digital Editions for secure delivery.

WCCC upgraded the Citrix environment in 2014 to XenApp version 7.5 to ensure Chrome OS would

have a compatible receiver to present applications and desktops.

Cost estimation is based on past upgrade costs for Citrix and the annual maintenance.


When classroom technology is replaced or upgraded, teachers must be trained on the use of that

technology. This holds true for both hardware and software standards. Professional Development

workshops and training sessions will be used to ensure that all teachers are capable of utilizing the

technology associated with their curriculum.





100% of teaching staff will be adequately prepared to use the equipment and software in any

classroom environment in the District.



41


Evaluation Process


● % of computers in the district meeting the minimum standard for the school year

● Survey data by teachers and students regarding the 1:1 program

● Teacher/Coordinator development of Moodle sites will be measured

● Administrative evaluation of Teachers/Coordinators will incorporate Moodle development

● Peer evaluation will be utilized with academic departments and career technical disciplines

● User reports for Citrix remote access


The Technology Department will use inventory software (currently Lansweeper) to run reports on

computers that need hardware and/or software upgrades for the coming school year. The

Technology Department will perform upgrades as needed and as the budget permits.

Staff and student input will be collected on the effectiveness of the 1:1 initiative and suggestions will

be considered for improvement of the program.

Data from the LMS will be used to evaluate the development of site for each teacher and/or

coordinator. During the the certified teacher evaluation process, the evaluator observes and notes

the degree to which the LMS is being being utilized by the teacher/coordinator. As teachers begin to

to more cross-curricular activities and share their integration strategies with one another, peer

evaluation will take hold.

The Technology Department will collect data from Citrix to determine the number of users and the

amount of use for this Remote Access technology. Data will be used to evaluate the future upgrade

and maintenance on the system.


● WCCC will have minimum standards for a consistent technology environment for staff and

students

● WCCC will have a consistent plan for phasing equipment in and out

● WCCC Main Campus students will have a device allowing them to connect to the Learning

Management System, retrieve materials and turn in assignments, access online texts and

cloud resource, and the full Google Apps productivity suite

● Teachers use Moodle to deliver content, integrate with Progress Book, keep calendars for

events and assignments, lead forum discussions, and provide links for online resources

● Students will be able to tune into class anytime, anywhere they have an Internet connection

● Students and teachers will have cloud resources with storage that fosters communication and

productivity

42


● Staff will have remote access to their files and resources, including printers, from anywhere

they have an Internet connection





Estimated Budget

2016: $339,200

2017: $339,200

2018: $339,200

Budget Notes


● Annual refresh budget for Lightweight Internet Cloud Computers (Hardware - 644, $4200)

● Annual refresh budget for Standard Duty Workstations (Hardware - 644, $125,000)

● Annual refresh budget for Heavy Duty Workstations (Hardware - 644, $47,000)

● Annual purchase of 1:1 technology (Hardware - 644, $96,000 with $48,000 recouped from

student fees)

● Annual refresh of Interactive Displays (Hardware - 644, $42,000)

● Annual renewal of Microsoft volume license agreement (Software - 516, $15,000)

● Annual renewal of MCOECN Adobe volume license agreement (Software - 516, $5000)

● Annual renewal of Citrix Software Assurance (Software - 516, $5000)

Goal 5

Goal 5: Sustaining and Advancing the Mobile 1:1 Technology Initiative

Goal Type: Technology Alignment to Curriculum

Goal Title: Sustaining and Advancing the Mobile 1:1 Technology Initiative

Goal Description:

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WCCC has met a previous goal of increasing participation in 1:1 Mobile Technology to 100% for

secondary students. With that goal met, the challenge shifts toward ensuring device compatibility

with standards and assessment requirements and financially sustaining the existing program.

Adult Education currently has one full time program, Cosmetology, engaged with 1:1 Technology.

Program coordinators are engaging in the online learning management system, Moodle, and are

looking for materials and resources that are online and available to students anywhere, anytime.

WCCC does not expect 100% of Adult Education students to participate in 1:1 Mobile Technology, but

would like to foster growth in their participation by adding additional programs of study.

Needs Assessment:

Device selection must be re-evaluated annually to determine the best sustainable fit for students and

staff. The 2014-15 1:1 initiative utilized Google Chromebooks. One program, Cosmetology, had a

change in curriculum that required Adobe Digital Editions for their textbook. Adobe Digital Editions is

not available in Chrome OS. Adult Education made a shift in device to a Windows based system.

Secondary Education and those Adults in cosmetology with Chromebooks use Citrix to access their

textbook.

Sustainability comes down to overall cost of the chosen device and the amount of that cost absorbed

by the district vs that picked up by student fees. There must also be a break/fix plan that includes a

budget and an exit strategy for the devices upon student graduation or withdrawal.

Strategies:

Annual Mobile 1:1 Platform Decision

Sustaining the Mobile 1:1 Initiative

Advancing the Mobile 1:1 initiative

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Mobile 1:1 Platform Decision


CT programs require full computing power that a tablet cannot give. Some CT programs require

advanced graphics and large display. Some CT programs require a numeric keypad. WCCC recognizes

the Mobile 1:1 Technology under this initiative to be a tool for students and not their sole end user

device either at school or off campus.

Essential features include:

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● Backlit LED display with support for 1366x768 or higher resolution (1024x768 required for

state tests)

● Quality keyboard and touchpad/mouse input (required for state tests)

● Minimum of 2 USB ports with at least one being USB 3 standard

● Minimum of 16 GB of internal storage

● External Audio Port

● Operating system capable of running Chrome Browser and utilizing Google Apps for Education

● Base price point under $250

● Expected battery life of 6 hours or more

● Wireless networking with a minimum of 802.11N standard

● The ability to be managed and tracked under a security domain

● Widely available repair parts and ease of repair function

Staff input has indicated a strong desire to keep the operating system consistent for all students.

However, if a curricular circumstance warrants moving a segment of the population to an alternative

platform, the District will make the best choice for the students.

The model chosen for 2014-15 was the Samsung 11.6” Chromebook XE303C12-A01US. The security

domain employed is the Google Apps for Education domain apps.mywccc.org.

Microsoft has taken a new approach by giving away their operating system for all devices selling for

under $250. The first device that we bench tested was the HP Stream 11. Since this product’s launch,

we have noticed competitive products from Acer. Licensing is tricky with Microsoft. The free

operating system that ships with these units is Windows with Bing. This is a home operating system

that cannot be used to join the WCCC security domain. We have tested and successfully applied a

Windows Professional image to the HP Stream 11. However, under our volume license agreement,

we must pay Microsoft an additional $34.90 license fee per year for any device that goes home with

students daily. This additional cost would be $24,430 annually. The price point of the HP Stream 11 is

lower than the Samsung Chromebook 2 per unit, however, it comes with extensive man-hours

required to image the professional operating system over USB and enroll the units on the WCCC

security domain, an anti-virus requirement, internal synchronization of offline files, and no reset

requiring re-imaging if the machine gets infected or corrupted. These factors are not an issue under

the Google platform. Currently, the Windows platform under Microsoft’s new licensing seems more

effective as a “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) option rather than a chosen technology for a District

driven 1:1 program.

At this time, WCCC prefers to be in control of the 1:1 program. Consideration must be given each

year for a shift to a BYOD program in which students are given a selection of devices to purchase for

school.

45


Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Sustaining the Mobile 1:1 Initiative


It was very important for the 1:1 initiative to have an accidental damage insurance plan in place for

students. The plan purchased through SquareTrade provided coverage up to the amount of a new

Chromebook. Unfortunately, a $40 screen replacement (5 minute job) is billed at the cost of replacing

the Chromebook by this insurance plan. Our lesson learned is that self-insurance is better than a

purchased plan.

For the 2013-14 school year, WCCC purchased the insurance plan for the student. By far, screen

repair has been the most common occurrence of accidental damage. We have reached out to other

districts and learned that several do similar blanket coverage while others require to the student to

pay for damages without insurance. Two other trends we have noticed is repeat offenders and

damage caused by another student. While these become discipline issues, they do directly impact

the 1:1 technology initiative and the decision making process surrounding it. It is a given that WCCC

will do self insurance moving forward. Decisions that must be made involving insurance include:

● Limiting the number of free repairs available to students (repeat offenders)

● Building discipline policy that clearly defines who is responsible when damages occur (the

owner or the offending party)

● Evaluating the scope of repair cost and budgeting for the insurance plan based on that

amount

One of the key challenges for the 2014-15 initiative has been loss of the power adapter. Loss and

theft is not covered under accidental damage. This has led to large scale theft of any available

charger. Each teacher was issued five spare chargers at the beginning of the year. Many teachers

have none left. Students approach use regularly for new chargers with the reason “Mine was stolen”.

We are fortunate to purchase third party chargers for $10 each. Currently, we explain to the student

that an additional $10 replacement charge will be added to their student fees if we replace the unit or

that they can purchase their own charger. The scope of this issue was not anticipated. WCCC must

make a decision if they are to continue to add to student fees or build power adapters into the

insurance plan. Parental input should be included.

Another key challenge has been the longevity of the carrying bag for the Chromebook. The purchase

price was $17 and provided adequate padding for normal use. Students overstuff the bags and break

the zippers. They also report screens being broken while the unit is in the bag which indicates that

the padding may not be adequate. The bag size and quality must be evaluated annually to ensure the

best value is being given to the student.

Student retention is a challenge with the 1:1 initiative. If a student leaves the district for any reason,

their intent for the 1:1 device must be identified. If they want to return the device, it must be

46


evaluated for condition with appropriate charges remaining on student fees. If they want to keep the

device, they must buy out their cost for the Chromebook. If they remain silent and their intent cannot

be determined, the cost remains on their student fees. Unpaid fees at the time of student exit of the

district are subject to collection.

In order to sustain the Mobile 1:1 initiative, finances must be examined annually. The cheaper

alternative to the District is to pass the financial burden entirely onto the student. This is the spirit of

BYOD. For the 2014-15 school year the cost breakdown was:

● Device with management: $266.98 (Half paid for by the District, half paid for with student

fees)

● Insurance: $44.99 (picked up by the District)

● Carrying Bag: $16.99 (Half paid for by the District, half paid for with student fees)

The total cost to the district was $186.98 per student. The cost initially added to student fees was

$141.99 (spread over two years if the student is enrolled in a 2-year program). The Chromebook is

owned by the student upon exit from the district. Student taking their academic coursework from

another institution thereby only attending WCCC for the career technical lab portion of the day are

issued a 1:1 device and assessed the same fees given to full day students.

Sustaining the Mobile 1:1 initiative requires that these costs remain fixed +/- 10%.

Strategy 3

Strategy 2 Title: Advancing the Mobile 1:1 initiative


WCCC can advance the Mobile 1:1 initiative through a higher level of integration and through

expanding the initiative to additional students.

Increasing the level of integration requires three pieces to fall into place: an increase in the number

of available software applications for integration; modification of teaching methods, and improving

the skill level of teachers with the adopted technology.

Assuming that the current Chromebook initiative remains in effect, WCCC must pursue, evaluate, and

purchase relevant apps from the Chrome Web Store. Teachers must go through the Web Store and

make recommendations on apps that they choose to use in their classes. If enough teacher support

can be rallied around an app, the Director may elect to budget money for purchase of the app.

Textbooks, consumable materials, and teaching resources should be purchased with online access

licensing so that students have access on their 1:1 device. While this will not be 100% possible, the

47


District must make every effort possible in this regard. If subject matter does not have an online

option or if the online option is not the best curricular resource, the teacher must utilize the learning

management system and engage students with additional resources to supplement the chosen

printed text. Teaching resources purchased by the District should always include an online

assessment resource.

The highest level of technology integration that a teacher could achieve would be the “Flipped

Classroom” where students explore their learning outside of the classroom and discuss, practice, and

get hands-on activity during class with the teacher. The second highest level of integration that a

teacher could achieve would be blended instruction where the teacher directs students learning daily

in the classroom but mixes in technology rich activities and resources for student participation in both

in and outside of class. The key difference between the flipped classroom and the blended classroom

is the role of the teacher. In order to achieve either of these levels of integration, extensive

professional development must take place on the technology component and the methodologies.

With regard to expanding the number of student participating in the 1:1 initiative, WCCC must

examine both Adult Education programming and Secondary satellite career technical students. Adult

Education Cosmetology students are currently in the 1:1 program using the HP Stream11 Windows

device. Being adults, WCCC is not concerned about policy, tracking, filtering, or pushing apps.

Therefore, these machines are not imaged with a professional operating system and do not require

additional software or services beyond the purchase. Adult Education Cosmetology students pay

100% of the cost of their device through their tuition and fees. Adult Education needs to determine if

expansion of the initiative should be 1:1 or BYOD, the level of support expected from the WCCC

Technology Department, and the career technical programs that are desired to be staged into the

initiative.

Secondary satellite students participate in a WCCC career technical program at their home high school

as part of their daily schedule. Several of these home schools have a BYOD or 1:1 initiative of their

own. Some of these students are with a WCCC teacher for multi-period blocks of instructional time

while other only have one period of WCCC instruction out of their school day. The challenge in

expanding 1:1 to satellite students is the financial burden due to the volume of students (2:1 ratio,

WCCC Attendees : Satellite Attendees) and the diversity of policy within the home school districts.

Since the priority of the satellite program is the career technical lab, past practice has been to provide

technology in the lab and leave students on their own for technology access outside of school. This

practice hampers the ability of a satellite teacher to achieve a flipped or highly blended classroom.

Another challenge for teachers in a district with a BYOD or 1:1 program is technology device/software

training provided by WCCC may or may not pertain to the technology being used by their students.

While satellite teaching staff is hired and evaluated by WCCC, they become an integral part of the

home school staff adhering to home school policies and initiatives.

48



If the 1:1 technology device were to change, staff would require a training session covering the

differences. Students require professional development as part of their curriculum. To meet the

needs of students, the Technology Department has an LMS course for student use of Technology with

a section dedicated to using the 1:1 device. Teachers may elect to train their students using this LMS

course.

As Adult Education programs begin to adopt 1:1 for their students, teachers and coordinators will

require the training necessary to make the program successful. This will involve workshops and

training session on the use of the 1:1 device in the instructional environment.




● LMS data on the number of staff and students connecting to the student training course on

District technology


100% of students will have 1:1 technology as part of their education expectation

100% of students and staff will be knowledgeable about the 1:1 device and how to use it for blended

instruction and learning.



Evaluation Process

Data to be collected will include:

● Survey data from Staff and Students on the effectiveness of the current 1:1 device

● Specifications of potential replacement devices

● Financial burden to the District for the 1:1 initiative

● Phase in of 1:1 technology for Adult Education

● % of highly blended classes


Staff and student input will be considered annually about the effectiveness of the 1:1 device. This

input will be used to evaluate the purchase of new equipment for the coming school year. The

49


specifications of potential replacement devices will be examined and the District will choose a device

that is affordable and meets all criteria for success of the program.

The 1:1 initiative must be weighed for financial burden to the District every year. Currently, the need

to manage student devices allowing for policy, pushing of apps, and compliance with State

assessments is worth the cost of sustaining a 1:1 program. A BYOD program would save the district

money and put the financial burden solely on the student. BYOD does not provide the management

of the device and would not provide a consistent environment for staff and students. However, BYOD

must be considered annually as an option.

The number of Adult Education programs participating in 1:1 technology will be monitored. Growth is

desired.

The teacher evaluation process will identify teachers that are highly blended with their use of

technology. The percentage of highly blended classes will be a monitored with annual growth

desired.


● Students will be able to work anytime, anywhere and tap into the resources they need to be

successful

● Productivity will increase as will the quality of student work

● The District will know the financial feasibility of sustaining the 1:1 initiative

● By maintaining 1:1 rather than BYOD, the District can manage 1:1 devices, push apps to the

devices, and leverage the devices for State assessments

● More Adult Education students will use 1:1 technology

● WCCC will increase the number of highly blended classes every year


Superintendent, Curriculum Director, Director, Assistant Director, Technology Director



Estimated Budget

2016: $0

2017: $0

2018: $0

Budget Notes

50


The cost of sustaining the 1:1 initiative was included in the budget estimate for Goal 4:

Standardization of Hardware and Software Resources for Curriculum and Instruction.

Section 3: Technology Policy, Leadership, and Administration

Goal Titles:

● Board Approved Policy

● Technology Department Policies, Standards, and Use

● Structuring Technology Leadership

● Developing Technology Initiatives

● Technology Budget Process

Section 3 Comments:

Technology Leadership in the district begins with the Technology Director. The Technology Director is

responsible for managing the technology budget, deploying and supporting all technology initiatives,

reporting to the Technology Committee and the Administration Team, and supporting staff with

technology integration and professional development.

The Technology Director reports directly to the Director of Curriculum and Instruction. Together, they

work with teachers to match curriculum with technology integration and implementation of

initiatives. As a team, evaluation and assessment is achieved to ensure students are getting the best

possible learning environment.

The Technology Director reports to the Technology Committee who steers this Technology Plan. They

gather staff input for potential technology initiatives and keeps staff informed as the Technology Plan

evolves and new initiatives are considered. The Technology Committee also works with staff to keep

them informed for their annual budget meetings and technology purchase requests. The Technology

Committee recommends new technology initiatives for consideration by the Administration Team.

The Technology Director reports to the Administration Team providing information about potential

technology initiatives, budgetary consideration, and the Technology Plan. The Administration Team

makes decisions regarding targeted technology initiatives, sets timelines and guidelines for

implementation and ensures accountability for implementation is properly monitored.

The Technology Director works with the Media Center Coordinator in planning professional

development activities to support the technology initiatives targeted by the Administration Team.

The Media Center Coordinator conducts team teaching activities in the Media Center ensuring that

Teachers are on track and that students are getting quality training on technology use with new

51


technology initiatives. The Media Center Coordinator is a standing member of the Technology

Committee.

The Director has final authority over the Technology Budget. The Director, Director of Curriculum,

and the Technology Director work together on planning the budget for new technology initiatives and

determining the technology budget for the coming fiscal year. There is a very distinct process used to

gather input from all staff, process their requests, plan initiatives, deploy, and train.

Most District goals for Technology Policy, Leadership, and Administration are continuous processes

that are renewed on an annual basis.

Goal 1

Goal 1: Board Approved Policy

Goal Type: Developing Policy

Goal Title: Board Approved Policy

Goal Description: The Warren County Career Center will review and revise Board of Education Policy

annually and update the Policy Manual in response to new and pending legislation.

Needs Assessment: The Board Policy Manual is overseen by the Superintendent with ongoing review

conducted by the Human Resources Specialist. The Technology Director and Director of Curriculum

and Instruction where appropriate. The Board Policy Manual is published at

http://policy.ctspublish.com/wccc-osba/

Strategies:

Extracting Technology Related Policy

Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act

Revising and Implementing New Policy

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Extracting Technology Related Policy

Strategy 1 Description: The Technology Director works with the Administration Team to draft and

revise policies related to Technology for the district including policies relating to Technology

Integration into Curriculum and Instruction. The Technology Director and/or the Human Resources

52


Specialist will publish excerpts from the Board Policy Manual and make this document available to

staff. This is currently done with online checkoff through a purchased service called Ohio Public

Schoolworks. Current topics include: Acceptable Use and Internet Safety, Bidding Requirements,

Copyright, District Websites, Email, Hazardous Waste, HIPAA, Instructional Materials, Public Records,

Social Networking, and Student Records.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act

Strategy 2 Description: The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA, 2001) was strengthened as the

Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act (2008). The FCC has mandated new guidelines for Erate

eligibility under the Act for 2012. WCCC is fully compliant by passing a Board of Education resolution

to train students on appropriate online behavior and cyberbullying. The delivery vehicle is currently

an online module delivered through Ohio Public Schoolworks. All students complete the training and

the district maintains a record of student names and attendance. Any students not in attendance

during the sessions are scheduled for a make-up session. The training is coordinated by the Director

of Secondary Education and the Media Center Specialist.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Revising and Implementing New Policy

Strategy 3 Description: The Board Policy Manual goes under cyclical revision by the Human

Resources Specialist. When the Superintendent recognizes the need for a revision, she coordinates

with key administrative personnel to draft the policy. For technology related items, the Technology

Director assists with the draft.


Staff will be trained via the online workshop titled Internet Safety and Cyberbullying. Staff will then

use the student module to lead all students through the workshop and have meaningful discussion on

these topics.



● Effectiveness survey of all staff and students surveys


53


WCCC will have zero instances of Cyberbullying.

WCCC student’s online profiles will be professional and of benefit when applying to college and/or

seeking employment.


IT Director, Human Resources Director, Director



Evaluation Process

The District will:

● Monitor legislation and ensure WCCC remains compliant

● Obtain legal review of all drafts or revisions to Board policy

● Students will be aware of potential risks associated with online behavior

● WCCC will be compliant with the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act

● The quantity of discipline referrals for cyberbullying will be reduced


The Superintendent monitors legislation and ensures that the District remains compliant. Legal

representation is used to proof any and all drafts or revisions to Board Policy which require approval

by the Board of Education.


● WCCC will remain compliant with current legislation

● WCCC will have relevant protective policy

● Staff will have a quick reference to ensure they are compliant with District expectations.


Curriculum Director; Human Resources Director; IT Director; Superintendent

Estimated Budget

54


2016: $0

2017: $0

2018: $0

Budget Notes

The cost of our Ohio Public Schoolworks (Internet Safety and Cyberbullying) is built into other goals in

this plan. The cost of Legal Representation for review of policy is beyond the scope of this document.

Goal 2

Goal 2: Technology Department Policies, Standards, and Use

Goal Type: Developing Policy

Goal Title: Technology Department Policies, Standards, and Use

Goal Description: The Technology Director will develop and publish online a Technology User Manual

for staff and students. This manual will be continuously updated.

Needs Assessment: Information exchange is lacking as technology rapidly evolves and new initiatives

are undertaken. A User Manual for staff and students is essential so that all users know what is

expected.

Strategies:

Technology Department FAQ

Technology Bulletin

Technology User Guides

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Technology Department FAQ

Strategy 1 Description: The Technology Department has an FAQ in WIKI format as part of the District

Intranet site run on Microsoft Sharepoint Foundations 2013. Technology Department Members will

develop the FAQ as questions come in from staff and students. This FAQ will be a searchable resource

for staff and students to quickly locate information. It will also provide an outlet for the Technology

55


Department to direct staff and students with common questions. There is currently little content on

the FAQ which needs to grow.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Technology Bulletin

Strategy 2 Description: The Technology Director will publish a periodic bulletin via email and online

posting to update staff and students on new technology initiatives, expectations, and use guidelines.

At minimum, this will occur on a quarterly basis. This could be accomplished as a searchable blog.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Technology User Guides

Strategy 3 Description: Technology User Guides will be created and updated on a regular basis for

both students and staff. Currently these guides are posted online in the learning management

system, Moodle. For staff, the guide is called Technology PD. For students, the guide is called

WCCC-Tech. These guides are posted in the form of a modular course with each module being a topic

of interest or training for staff and students. The list of topics include services, workflows, support,

etc. The amount of information needs to be increased and current information needs to be

monitored, updated, and kept organized.


Staff and students will need to be trained to locate and use published information including the

Technology FAQ, Technology Bulletins, and Technology Guides. These items are for reference.


Feedback on the Technology FAQ, Technology Bulletins, and Technology Guides will be collected by

the Technology Director. Feedback will be used to improve these resources.


100% of staff and students will have online resources that inform them of the technology resources

available and how to use them.

56



Technology Director

Where are we now? Entry


Evaluation Process


● Growth of the Technology FAQ

● The number of bulletins published per year

● Feedback on Technology bulletins from staff

● Revision history of Technology Guides


The Technology Director will monitor the growth of the Technology FAQ and ensure that staff

members are adding appropriate documentation. He/She will also monitor the number the

Technology bulletins published and review and share the feedback that they generate.

The Technology Director will monitor the revision history of published technology guides to ensure

they are up to date and relevant.


● Technology Department members will not have to answer the same question multiple times

which will improve efficiency

● Staff and students will have an online resource to seek information

● Staff will become more self-sufficient

● Students and staff will have smaller chunks of information to digest regarding technology to

keep them better informed

● Students and staff will be better informed about available services and the expectations for

use of those services


Technology Director, Curriculum Director

Estimated Budget

2016: $0

2017: $0

57


2018: $0

Budget Notes

There are no budgetary items in this goal.

Goal 3

Goal 3: Structuring Technology Leadership

Goal Type: Providing District Leadership

Goal Title: Structuring Technology Leadership

Goal Description: Every organization has leaders in technology innovation. The Administration team

evaluators and the Technology Director can identify these leaders and position them to help others

mature and grow into technology innovators. This may be in the form of leading professional

development sessions or taking on a mentoring role. The Technology Committee is the steering

committee for all District Technology initiatives and must be represent a cross section of each Division

and role within the District.

Needs Assessment: Within any district attrition of staff occurs and reorganization becomes

necessary. At WCCC, people with expertise in technology lead the district technology initiatives.

Strategies:

Fostering Growth

District Technology Initiatives

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Fostering Growth


WCCC is comprised of career technical programs of study and core academic courses. Our vision

statement states that we provide quality academic and career technical education. We pave the way

for a future of opportunities unique to each of our learners. Each career technical program falls

under a larger umbrella of standards established by the state which may share common curricular

components with other programs. Teachers with overlapping curriculum modules, such as Criminal

Justice and Legal Office Technology, often work together. Similarly, teachers from each core

58


academic area work together. This can be in the form of a joint module of instruction, group

instruction, resource sharing and development, and curriculum development.

To foster growth of technology innovation, leaders from each area of study can be identified to try

new hardware, software, or a new method. These teachers can evaluate new technology and, if

adopted, can provide assistance and guidance to other teachers they interact with.

It is the responsibility of the Technology Director to find new technologies for innovation, acquire trial

version or bench test hardware, and network with key staff to determine the best possible candidates

for field testing. If a staff member finds a new technology to try they will work with the Technology

Director to determine feasibility and initiate acquisition when appropriate.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: District Technology Initiatives

Strategy 2 Description: The District has been on a very direct pathway for the last five years building

toward our 1:1 initiative. The steps taken have been:

● Piloting 1:1 with select career technical programs

● Implementing a cloud based productivity/collaboration/storage suite (Google Apps for

Education)

● Implementing a learning management system (Moodle)

● Selecting the 1:1 Device and training training teachers (Chromebook)

● Launching the 1:1 initiative

Each of these steps has been an initiative with only the first step being limited to 25% of our staff and

students. These District initiatives have been automatic for the direction the leadership of the District

has taken. Staff have been trained for these initiatives both collectively and individually.

Now that our end goal has been reached with 1:1 for all secondary students studying on our main

campus, that path is not as clear. It is imperative that the district remain current and innovative. It is

the Technology Director’s responsibility to remain aware of the new technologies, best practices, and

methods that could become a District Initiative. The Technology Director must communicate with

the Administration team, the Technology Committee, attend workshops and technology conferences,

and remain in contact with quality reliable consultants and vendors.

All potential technology initiatives will first be discussed by the technology committee to determine

feasibility and to frame an implementation plan. Next, all potential District technology initiatives

must be presented as a recommendation by the Technology Director to the Directors, Curriculum

Director, and Assistant Directors for targeted implementation during the next school year. The

59


administration team will determine the chosen targeted initiative(s) and the desired scope of

implementation.


When a new technology is to be field tested, the Technology Department will work with the lead staff

member in getting the new technology set up. Time parameters for implementation and follow up

will be set. If the field test is successful, the Technology Director will decide the scope of rollout and

determine if there is potential for the new technology to become a District initiative. The Technology

Director will work to schedule training sessions for targeted staff with the assistance of the lead staff

member in the form of mentoring and workshops. This may be a train the trainer approach.


The rollout of new technology within academic and career technical areas as well as District

technology initiatives will be monitored for success and evaluated for effectiveness.


100% of staff will be involved in field testing and trying new innovative technology.


Assistant Director; Curriculum Director; Director; IT Director; Teachers



Evaluation Process

WCCC will:

● Use the staff evaluation tool as a resource to measure the growth of technology innovation

● Collect data from the annual staff surveys to monitor staff satisfaction with technology

resources

● Field test new technologies and evaluate them for adoption

● Develop new technology initiatives and pilot programs for implementation


60


The District Administration Team will monitor individual staff growth in technology innovation during

the evaluation process. They will set goals improvement goals with targeted outcomes when

appropriate. Staff will provide input to the Administration Team through survey data that reflects

their satisfaction with current technology resources and their desire for new technology or change in

process or procedure.

When a new technology initiative is being developed, the Administration team will evaluate the

recommendations made by teaching staff and the Technology Director and render a decision.


● Staff will have a network of peers that they can rely on for guidance and assistance in addition

to the Technology Department team and the Media Center Specialist

● Staff will be more highly tuned into implementing targeted initiatives and as a result provide

higher levels of technology integration for their students.

● By targeting an initiative for implementation district-wide, teachers will adopt more

technology integration into their teaching methods


Assistant Director; Curriculum Director; Director; IT Director

Estimated Budget

2016: $0

2017: $0

2018: $0

Budget Notes

Line items for new technology initiatives are provided in other goals in this document.

Goal 4

Goal 4: Developing Technology Initiatives


Goal Title: Developing Technology Initiatives

61


Goal Description: The Technology Director will keep the Technology Committee and the

Administration team informed about new technology developments and potential initiatives for the

district.

Needs Assessment: Technology is evolving exponentially. The Technology Director is the designated

person to relay knowledge of opportunities for growth in technology integration. The Technology

Committee is the steering body for determining feasibility and potential for all Technology Initiatives.

The District must have an organizational structure that fosters the development of Technology

initiatives and change.

Strategies:

Technology Conferences

Bench Test – Try Before You Buy

Coordination with External Vendors

Workflows for Technology Initiatives

Curriculum Revision and Technology Initiatives

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Technology Conferences

Strategy 1 Description: The Technology Director and the Media Center Specialist will coordinate a

team of staff to attend Technology Conferences annually and compile feedback from attending staff

on potential for new initiatives and new products that vendors can offer.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Bench Test - Try Before You Buy

Strategy 2 Description: Much great education technology software is open source. Sometimes this

means greater challenge for implementation. No matter what potential technology initiative WCCC

investigates, the Technology Director will ensure that the Technology Department conducts a

thorough bench test of product and reports the success, challenges, and a potential implementation

plan to the Technology Committee prior to recommendation of the product as an initiative to the

Administration.

62


Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Coordination with External Vendors

Strategy 3 Description: One of the best resources for information regarding success and potential of

technology initiatives is the external vendors that the district currently does business with. Be it

networking, telephony, or software, or service companies, vendors are ready and willing to discuss

options and present both concepts and ideas for implementation. The Technology Director will access

these avenues of expertise and report ideas back to the Technology Committee and the

Administration Team. If the concept is best implemented as an initiative by an external vendor, the

Technology Director will make that recommendation.

Strategy 4

Strategy 4 Title: Workflows for Technology Initiatives

Strategy 4 Description: The Technology Director is responsible for receiving suggestions for initiatives

from internal and external sources at all levels. The Technology Director has responsibility to

determine feasibility, complete cost analysis, perform bench testing, develop an implementation and

professional development proposal, and report to the Technology Committee and the Administration

Team.

The Technology Committee has responsibility to make recommendations for initiatives, steer the

District Technology Plan, and promote initiatives to staff and students, and steer the professional

development program to support those initiatives.

First the Technology Director will report all potential initiatives and/or change to the Technology

Committee for discussion. The Technology Committee will determine feasibility and potential for

implementation. Then the Technology Director will report the potential initiatives/change to the

Administration team.

The Administration Team has responsibility to take information about potential initiatives, determine

targeted initiatives for implementation, approving the implementation plan, and holding staff

accountable for the implementation of approved initiatives.

Strategy 5

Strategy 5 Title: Curriculum Revision and Technology Initiatives

63


Strategy 5 Description: Curriculum operates on a five year revision cycle under the supervision of the

Curriculum Director. When a new Technology Initiative is under investigation, it is necessary to

engage the curriculum to ensure match, fit, feasibility, and determine outcomes.

The Technology Director meets with the Administration Team to determine the initiatives to be

targeted for a school year. Once an initiative is set, the Curriculum Director will work with the

Technology Director to draft modifications to the curriculum as needed. The Curriculum Director will

meet with and discuss curriculum and methodology changes with the teachers involved and develop

an integration plan to be added to the curriculum.


Attendance at Technology Conferences is Professional Development for teachers.

Meetings between the Technology Director and external vendors provides some means of

professional development to the Technology Department when ideas are shared and products

examined.


The following will be collected:

● Feedback from staff attending Technology conferences on innovative or best practices learned

● Feedback from staff attending Technology conferences on vendor offerings of interest

● Data documenting potential vendor solutions and ideas for implementation


100% of all technology initiatives will be field tested to ensure feasibility and merit.


Assistant Director; Curriculum Director; Director; IT Director; Teachers



Evaluation Process

The following measures will be evaluated:

● Number of innovative or best practices learned at Technology Conferences

● The number of vendor offerings shared by attendees of Technology Conferences

64


● Data gathered from bench testing products

● Data gathered from meetings with external vendors

● Checks and balances in the Technology Initiative workflow

● Curricular Integration of Technology Initiatives


Staff attending Technology Conferences will check in with the Technology Director to share all

innovative or best practices they learned about. They will also share information gathered from

vendors about new or interesting products.

The Technology Department will conduct bench tests and if appropriate, pilot a field test with a

teacher and students when a new technology is to be considered. Data will be used to evaluate the

technology for feasibility and merit.

The Technology Director will keep a journal of meetings with external vendors to include the vendor

information and ideas shared.

The workflow for a technology initiative provides checks and balances at the level of Technology

Director, Technology Committee, and finally, the Administration Team.

When a Technology Initiative is adopted, it is expected to be included in the methods and procedures

for the next curriculum review.


● District awareness of potential new products and means to implement them will increase\

● District awareness of other district's successful initiatives will increase.

● The District will have a clear idea of the potential, the challenges, and the risks associated with

any product prior to jumping in with an initiative

● Tapping into experts at the vendor level will give the district greater understanding of the

potential that an investment in resources can have.

● The district will benefit by having technology initiatives thoroughly investigated, tested,

planned, and prepared prior to implementation.

● By ensuring proper match, fit, and feasibility, students will receive enhanced training by each

adopted technology initiative.


Assistant Director; Curriculum Director; Director; IT Director, Technology Committee, Administration

Team

65


Estimated Budget

2016: $0

2017: $0

2018: $0

Budget Notes

Line items for these strategies are provided in other goals in this document.

Goal 5

Goal 5: Technology Budget Process


Goal Title: Technology Budget Process

Goal Description: The technology budget is part of the general fund which is supervised by the

Director of Secondary Education. Adult Education operates with cost centers independent of the

general fund and managed by the Director of Adult Education. A timeline and structure will be

utilized to ensure staff input and meet the goals of this technology plan and district initiatives.

Needs Assessment: Saving money is essential for the district. By careful planning and bulk

purchasing, the district can save money and be proactive in accomplishing well defined goals.

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: The Technology Budget Process


● The Technology Committee discusses staff input and makes recommendations to the

Administration Team for new initiatives.

● The Staff completes a technology request survey for the following fiscal year.

● The Technology Director discusses new initiatives with the Administration team and

determines the feasibility of each technology purchase request.

● Meetings occur between the Director, Technology Director and Curriculum Director to

approve or disapprove requests and set a proposed budget

66


● The Superintendent and Treasurer meet with the Directors to finalize budgets

● Plans are made for the next Technology Professional Development Program to ensure training

for new initiatives

● The Technology Director coordinates with the necessary vendors and makes purchases in bulk

based on approved items after July 1.

● Deployment occurs July 7 - August 8.

● Training begins in August and continues until May.


Staff is informally trained on the completion of surveys (Sharepoint Foundations Server). When a

technology purchase is made requiring professional development, a formal training session is

provided. This session may be provided by the external vendor used to purchase and/or install the

technology. A Train the Trainer approach may be used.





100% of WCCC’s technology purchases will be implemented and staff trained prior to the start of the

school year or the Adult Education entry point.


IT Director, Curriculum Director, Teachers



Evaluation Process

Each step in the WCCC Technology Purchasing process will be checked off for completion on an

annual basis.


67


Technology Purchasing is a multi-step process. There are variables involved in key staff positions. The

steps listed are in chronological order and validation of the completion of each step serves as

evaluation of the strategy.


● The District will save money through bulk purchasing

● Staff members plan ahead and develop their departmental budget carefully

● WCCC will not waste money on unplanned or poorly executed purchases


Curriculum Director; Director; IT Director; Superintendent; Treasurer

Estimated Budget

2016: $0

2017: $0

2018: $0

Budget Notes

This is a procedural goal and strategy. No budget necessary.

68


Section 4: Technology Infrastructure, Management, and Support

Goal Titles:

● Wireless Infrastructure

● Erate Category 2

● Virtualization

● Telephone System

● Safe and Secure Access

● Public, Parent, Student Access

● Data Driven Decision Making

● Service Improvement

● Managing TCO

● Disaster Recovery

Section 4 Comments:

Changes in Erate funding have modified the way we look at funding infrastructure. WCCC has

historically done gradual replacement of infrastructure. Now that the FCC has funded Category 2

funds for Network Connectivity equipment for all districts, WCCC anticipates a five year budget

amount of 700 students @ $150 per student or $105,000 pre-discount. WCCC is eligible for 60%

reimbursement under the Erate program based on the school lunch program which will amount to

$63,000. Eligible items for consideration for category 2 funds include access points, cabling and

connectors, caching, firewall services and components, switches, routers, racks, UPS units, wireless

controllers, and software supporting these hardware units. Also eligible are third party services for

managed wireless and managed LAN/WAN services. The other huge change in the Erate program is

the phase out of all reimbursement for Telephony. WCCC will receive 40% reimbursement in funding

year 2015, 20% in funding year 2016, after which funding will be phased out.

As the understanding and training for the new Erate changes and as the FCC publication as being

defined in practice through November of 2014, WCCC had hard decisions to make quickly.

Additionally, WCCC was already under contract for managed wireless rendering this ineligible without

the provider breaking/signing a new contract with a fair bidding process. WCCC had begun the

process of pushing 1 gbps Ethernet to the desktop during the 2012-13 school year and had added

additional 1 gbps managed switches in the 2013-14 school year. Therefore, WCCC decided to initialize

the five year budget on a network core upgrade with a reassignment of current 1 gbps switches and a

replacement in three of five wiring closets.

There are a lot of questions around the new Erate program. Will the money hold out for five years? Is

it smarter to try to expend all of the budget cycle immediately or to try to spread it out over five

years? Will the FCC reverse its position on Telephony? Will the FCC be able to sustain the program?

69


Will smaller vendors specializing in network hardware installation and support who do not have the

sales/engineering staff to crank out hundreds of bids between October and March be able to compete

with larger competitors?

The loss of telephony funding is a hardship. WCCC had to examine the 40% to 20% two year dent on

managed telephony service to see if it would be cost effective to move in that direction as the initial

cost of implementation of a managed service is higher than the ongoing cost. The Erate bidding

process clearly defined that the Erate phase out make premises telephony systems the most cost

effective. This means that districts will be responsible to purchase the telephony system and support

it moving forward. WCCC’s telephony system will reach end of life, end of support July 1, 2015.

Erate aside, WCCC has bigger infrastructure plans. The District is attempting to pass a renewal levy

for operations that would generate additional revenue based on the current tax base in Warren

County. Our building, IRN 051474, is 40 years old. Code for public facilities has changed. While

WCCC has been able to stay current with technology advances, the building itself is in severe need of

renovation, particularly for HVAC, plumbing and electrical infrastructure. Beyond infrastructure, our

facility was built around an open classroom design that does not meet Ohio School Facilities

Commission standards for classroom instruction. WCCC has grown beyond the capacity of the

original building. This this end, we lease space and hold programming at the Warren County One Stop

building, Kings Mills Local Schools, the Warren County Humane Society, and the Warren County

Airport. In short, we need the additional revenue the levy can provide to move forward with our

Facilities plan to renovate and expand our facility bringing both the infrastructure and the

instructional environment up to current code and standards.

It is imperative that WCCC maintain current standards and practices for the goals set forth in Phase 4:

Technology Infrastructure, Management, and Support in order to remain competitive and productive

in training our community and workforce in Warren County.

Goal 1

Goal 1: Wireless Infrastructure

Goal Type: Networking, Internet and Telecommunications

Goal Title: Wireless Infrastructure

Goal Description:

WCCC is now a 1:1 technology district. The main campus currently has access point density of one per

maximum anticipated 30 students. WCCC entered into a managed wireless contract for 63 access

70


points in 2012 and added 14 additional access points in 2014. The access points deployed are under

the 802.11N standard which is now replaced with 802.11AC. WCCC must leverage a plan to continue

effective 1:1 wireless density while utilizing the latest standards in wireless networking.

Needs Assessment:

The current managed wireless system meets our needs. It is desired to upgrade to the latest

standards when the contracts for our current wireless expire.

Strategies:

Managed or Premises?

Setting the standard

Maximizing bandwidth for the AP and end user

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Managed or Premises?


Managed Wireless services holds its appeal. Currently, District wireless is under the management of

the Southwest Ohio Computer Association (SWOCA). There is a loss of control for the District IT

Department staff with managed wireless, however, the team at SWOCA is very efficient and does an

excellent job. When WCCC entered into the wireless contract with SWOCA in 2012, it was clearly the

least cost and best solution for the district. At that time, WCCC spoke with Aruba, Aerohive, Extreme,

Cisco, Meraki, and Adtran. SWOCA managed wireless is Cisco based.

In examining Category 2 funding with Erate, we discovered that the cost of premises wireless

solutions have dropped significantly since 2012 and that many of the niche players in the market are

either thriving or are no longer players with an impact. What is common now is flexible control over a

mesh network of access points with bandwidth dropped on the local switch vlan. In 2012, these were

new concepts and the traditional method of pulling wireless data back through a controller was still

the mainstay. These concepts are vital. We are also seeing the the advent of 802.11AC a move to

multi-uplink ports per AP either with LACP port aggregation or for individual uplink for each wireless

band in dual band APs (2.4 GHz/5GHz). These are all important features. 802.11AC is an evolving

standard with IEEE’s current published paper stating aggregate bandwidth up to 7 Gbps. It is

expected for APs to commonly have 1.3 to 3.5 Gbps within the next 1-2 years. When that happens,

access points will need port aggregation if the edge switch ports are 1 gbps. These features are

critical for 2016 when determining a solution:

71


● multiple uplink ports capable of band assignment and port aggregation

● Controller with configuration and heartbeat only, data stays on local edge switch

● Fully Meshed network with redundancy and seamless roaming

● Fully Meshed network with recovery or failover when heartbeat to controller is

broken

● Capable of the latest 802.11 standard

Additionally, for the District to consider running a 10 Gbps uplink to an AP, the standard for the wiring

itself must be Category 6A wiring to support up to 100 meters at 10GbE Ethernet.

The decision made for premises vs managed will come down to the lowest total cost of ownership.

For WCCC to provide for multiple drops to each AP means additional wiring. There should be erate

funds available for Erate FY2016 which will reimburse WCCC for funds allocated toward a wireless

upgrade.

The cost estimation for this project is for premises equipment purchase based on quotes from the

FY2015 Erate process with a 3 year average.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Setting the standard


WCCC’s current managed wireless is under IEEE 802.11n standard which is rated up to 600 mbps.

WCCC’s access points are older Cisco 1042 units under the 802.11n standard. They are 2x2 dual band

with physical data rates up to 300 mbps. Each access point has a single gigabit uplink. WCCC has

targeted no more than 30 clients per access point which means each client, under worst case

scenario, would have up to 10 mbps of bandwidth which is enough to stream high definition video.

Moving forward in 2016, WCCC will have to accept and specify in bid documents the desired standard

for wireless control and distribution. IEEE’s paper on 802.11ac indicates access points to be

manufactured that are 8x8 dual band with link aggregation supporting physical throughput of up to 7

Gbps. The paper also specifies 80 and 160 MHz channel bandwidth which increases the number of

available channels per AP allowing for greater interoperability and density with the wireless mesh.

The paper specifies two waves for 802.11ac and manufacturers are now creating products that

support wave 1 technology specifications.

The current managed wireless provider, SWOCA, is currently offering wave 1 access points that are

3x3 dual band and taking advantage of the 80 MHz channel range. These access points have a

physical data rate of up to 867 Mbps. In June of 2016, 63 current access points will come off of

contract and WCCC will accept bids for both managed and premises wireless. The 802.11ac standard

72


will evolve in terms of wave 1 offerings and it is expected that manufacturers will have wave 2 devices

on the market. It will be critical for WCCC to determine the optimal affordable standard for the

District to ensure a lifespan of 4-5 years for the lifespan of the solution.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Maximizing bandwidth for the AP and end user


You cannot speak of wireless without addressing the current wired backhaul of the access points.

Keeping with the target of gigabit to the desktop and 30 clients per AP, the published papers on

802.11ac do not address physical throughput of 30 Gbps. However, the technology will evolve during

the next 4-5 years. Under current IEEE papers, AP bandwidth is expected to reach 7 Gbps which could

potentially offer 238 mbps per client which exceeds WCCC’s current wired bandwidth to the desktop

in some cases. The bottom line is that the game is changing and wireless bandwidth capability is

catching up to that of wired. Some day, wireless bandwidth will exceed wired, but not during the

lifespan of this document.

If we anticipate 7 Gbps throughput per AP, with each AP having 2 Ethernet ports, WCCC will have to

run new wire to the APs under a minimum of Category 6A standard to ensure the cabling can handle

10 Gbps for 100 meters. Category 6 cabling is only rated for 55 meters at this bandwidth.

Additionally, WCCC will have to provide 10 Gbps port density to support the APs and this new cabling.

Typically, unless the wiring is done during a construction project or done in house by the Technology

Department, you would expect to pay $150 to $225 per wire drop. If running two wires for 63 access

points, this would be up to $28,350 in cabling alone. With the 63 access points spread between five

wiring closets, new 10 Gbps switches will have to be purchased and connected to the core. These

types of switches are brand new technology and are not affordable at this time. But it is essential to

plan for and prepare budgeting for this in the future. It is anticipated that in five years, this wiring

and upgrade in distribution will be the target of the second 5 year budget cycle under Erate Category

2 funding.

At some point in the future, expect increased emphasis on wireless and core technologies and less

emphasis on wired distribution of Ethernet.


Movement to a new wireless system could potentially take place in 2016 when the first 63 managed

Access Points come off contract. Technology Department staff will require training in a Train the

Trainer approach. Training will be provided by either the managed solution provider or by the vendor

providing the sales and implementation. In order to make an informed decision, the Technology

73


Director will be required to maintain knowledge of IEEE standards and publication and network with

experts from resellers and installation vendors.


Professional Development will be measured by the success of the Technology Department in adapting

to and implementing a new system.


The Technology Department Staff will be proficient in their role in monitoring and managing the

wireless infrastructure.


Technology Director



Evaluation Process

The following will be measured for evaluation:

● TCO of any new wireless system, 4-5 year anticipated life span

● Determination of entering a managed wireless contract or purchasing premises equipment

● Determination of the IEEE wireless standard to be deployed


WCCC will choose the solution with the lowest cost of ownership. Erate Form 470 will be filed for

Category 2 managed wireless and for wireless controller and APs. The best solution for WCCC will be

determined and selected and the project will ensue.

The Technology Director will be responsible to determine the 802.11 standard to be implemented

with a new wireless system. This decision will include cost analysis, wiring capability, and wired

infrastructure requirements to drive the standard. The Technology Director will be responsible to

determine how to maximize the wired throughput to each access point which in turn will maximize

the wireless client bandwidth.


● The wireless environment at WCCC will be state of the art and will sustain our 1:1 initiative

74


● WCCC will have a current wireless infrastructure that will be viable for a 4-5 year lifespan

● WCCC will have maximum bandwidth throughput per wireless client available under the

specifications for the wireless system


IT Director, Treasurer, Superintendent

Estimated Budget

2016: $0

2017: $50,000

2018: $50,000

Budget Notes

The cost is an average for a worst case scenario of a premises equipment purchase. Managed

wireless is certainly a lower cost option and, based on quotes received for Erate FY15, premises

equipment should come in much lower. Targeted in the cost for 2017-18 are:

● Replacement equipment (Equipment - 644 or Purchased Services - 490, $35,000)

● Replacement wiring, Category 6A (Purchased Services - 490, $15,000)

Goal 2 Goal 2: Erate Category 2

Goal Type: Networking, Internet and Telecommunications

Goal Title: Erate Category 2

Goal Description: For Funding year 2015, the FCC has released a budget that is expected to be

sustained, which provides defined Category 2 funds to all districts and phases out telephony. Should

the budget not be sustained, Erate falls back to providing districts with most need based on the

Federal Free and Reduced Lunch program with fund first. WCCC currently sits at the 60%

reimbursement level.

The first approved request for a district starts a five year budget cycle per building IRN at a rate of

$150 per student attending that IRN. WCCC has programming for students at 13 locations. Six of

those locations are satellite programs in other schools (Springboro, Franklin, Fenwick, Lebanon, Kings,

and Little Miami) with their own building IRN and Erate category 2 funds. These locations cannot be

75


counted for WCCC. Programs at the Humane Society, Airport, and Greentree can be counted because

these K-12 students attend classes at the WCCC building IRN location. In total, WCCC anticipates a

five year budget cycle of $105,000 to begin in Erate funding year 2015 with $63,000 in reimbursement

available.

This goal’s target is to plan for expenditure of this five year budget cycle and set the table for needs in

the next five year budget cycle.

Needs Assessment: WCCC must anticipate that Erate funds will be available for internal bandwidth

connections and must plan out how to best leverage those funds for the future of the district.

Strategies:

Five year cycle #1

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Five year cycle #1

Strategy 1 Description: The first five year cycle will impact the 2015-16 school year provided the

District’s Erate funding requests are granted. In looking at existing contracts and the status of

network bandwidth, a plan evolved in a very short period of time. The current core of the WCCC

network is gigabit with a 48 Gbps backplane and 2x 10 Gbps ports. It is a stack of four layer 3

switches, Cisco branded, sharing that backplane. Currently, WCCC has the network segmented to no

more than 144 end users trunked across a single 1 Gbps uplink to that core. This means that at peak

bandwidth times, wired workstations can be dropped as low as 7 Mbps. This is adequate bandwidth

to stream HD video but not to stream that video and multitask at the same time. Fortunately, no IDF

has 144 active drops in a switch stack at any given point in time.

Taking this into consideration along with the increase in demand that we have seen in the last five

years, the priority for the first budget cycle is the network core. WCCC accepted bids for hardware

and spoke with engineers promoting Cisco and HP Network technologies. WCCC made the decision to

break from Cisco Networks due to the expense of ongoing maintenance costs. HP provides a lifetime

8x5 next day replacement warranty. Additionally, WCCC will be moving away from a layer 3 switch

stack and into a modular switch with redundant power and supervisor engines. The core upgrade

submitted for Category 2 fund reimbursement is for an HP 5412R-Gig-T-PoE+/SFP+ v2 zl2 Switch with

the following specifications:

● dual 2750 Watt power supplies for redundancy and for PoE to the IDF distribution within the

MDF

● 12 slots - adequate for expansion

● Support for up to 96 ten gigabit port and 288 gigabit ports

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● 1Tbps layer 3 switch fabric (1024 Gbps)

● 38 10Gbe ports

○ Will allow for use of all four ports on current HP P2000 G3 SAN (currently use 2)

○ Will allow for upgrade of current VMWare hosts to 20 Gbps from 8 Gbps

○ Will provide 20 Gbps to each IDF in redundant links with a max of 192 users

(guarantees no less than 100 mbps throughput to all wired users, up from 7 Mbps)

● 132 10/100/1000 ports with PoE+ to serve standalone servers (Exchange, Email Archiver,

Development Virtual Hosts, etc), wireless access points, ip surveillance cameras, and end

users whose drops terminate in the MDF

WCCC will be able to utilize an existing Cisco layer 3 switch to sit between the new core and the circuit

that connects the building IRN to our ITC, SWOCA, at 1 Gbps. This Cisco switch will redistribute EIGRP

routes from SWOCA to OSPF routes at 1 GBPS with the capability of using a port channel to increase

bandwidth as needed should our Internet pipe be expanded. Our current contract for 1 Gbps fiber

switched Ethernet expires in 2020.

With the core upgrade planned, the next step to utilizing Category 2 funds is to elevate the bandwidth

to wired end users. One of the best moves we have made in the last three years was to upgrade our

fiber plant to 50 micron to ensure all IDFs were capable of delivering multiple 10 Gbps trunks to the

core. We have already ordered the Stack Cables and modules to repurpose our Cisco 2960S gigabit

Switches in IDFs New Wing and Mailroom. These IDFs will also have 20 Gbps to the core and serve 1

Gbps to the desktop. By leveraging these existing Cisco switches, our two largest IDFs, 527 and 224

need to be upgraded at the edge. Our selection for year 1 Category 2 funds is the HP 2920-48G-POE+

switch. Very similar to the Cisco 2960S, this switch delivers full POE+ to each port and will have a 20

Gbps uplink module while delivering 1 Gbps to the desktop.

The agreement with the company chosen for the network upgrade summer of 2015, Total Systems

Integration, has agreed to the clause that the project is contingent upon Erate approval. The upfront

cost to the district will be $85,000 and the expected reimbursement will be $40,000 leaving $23,000

of reimbursement left in the five year budget cycle.

Decisions to be made moving forward with the first five year budget cycle will take into consideration

the status of our levy and future renovation/construction projects. Construction/renovation funds

spent for technology would fall outside of erate. Plans for the budget include a wireless decision in

2016 (and again in 2018) and eventual replacement of the Cisco 2960S switches. It is expected that

the next iteration of wireless be 802.11ac with 2 gbps provided to each ap. That density can be

handled without adding additional edge switches. The HP core switch can have a wireless controller

module added that could take over as premises equipment. Managed wireless has been very stable

and cost effective. No matter which way the district moves in 2016, the anticipated cost of the

project will be about $65,000 which can fully expend the remainder of the category 2 reimbursement

budget.

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A train the trainer approach will be used for all turn-key solutions handed off to the Technology

Department. The installation vendor will hold responsibility for the project until completion.

Completion means that the vendor has trained the Technology Department staff and the Technology

Director has signed off on the project as complete. Payment can be issued only after completion of

the project.


When the hand-off of the project from the installation vendor to the Technology Department is

complete, the Technology Department has indicated that their professional development on the new

system is sufficient.


100% of the Technology Department staff will be proficient in managing and configuring new

networking hardware gained by Erate Category 2 funds.


Director of Technology, Installation Vendor for Turn-Key solution


Where do we want to be? Innovation

Evaluation Process

WCCC will evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation with the following data:

● Computer imaging times

● I/O measurements of the Storage Area Network

● File Transfer Time

WCCC will evaluate the effectiveness of HP networking vs Cisco Networking with the following data:

● Warranty claims on switches

● # of forced reboots due to system hang

● Ease of implementation and management by Technology Department staff survey


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The Technology Department will conduct bench tests on the network after implementation. Since

certain segments of the environment (New Wing and Mailroom IDFs) will still be cisco networking,

comparative data can be performed with and without the new core. Bench testing for imaging times,

I/O, and file transfer times will be done during both off and peak hours. While this solution is long

term, the data gathered will be used to evaluate these manufacturers for the next refresh cycle.


WCCC will see:

● A 21x increase in core bandwidth

● a 20x increase in bandwidth to the edge

● A 14x increase in end user bandwidth

● Savings by dropping ongoing Cisco Maintenance in favor of HP Lifetime 8x5 NBD replacement

warranty

The anticipated wireless project will yield a minimum of a 3x increase in end user wireless bandwidth

The District will be poised to utilize Category 2 funds to sustain cutting edge technology and

bandwidth for our users and have a plan moving into the future.


Technology Director, Treasurer, Superintendent

Estimated Budget

2016: $84,905.78 ($40,026.43 in Erate reimbursement)



Budget Notes

The winning bid for the 2016 network upgrade is for $84,905.78. One of the switches will be placed in

the Administration building which is not eligible for erate as a non-instructional facility. Patch cables

and VMWare host upgrades are not eligible for Erate reimbursement. The total eligible cost of the

project for FY2015 is $66,710.71 of which Erate reimbursement of 60% will bring $40,026.43 back to

the district. This will leave an anticipated $22,973.57 in reimbursement for the next four funding

years, which was averaged over 2017 and 2018. If student enrollment increases during the five year

cycle, the reimbursement amount will also increase.

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Goal 3

Goal 3: Virtualization

Goal Type: Access to Technology

Goal Title: Virtualization

Goal Description: WCCC has a production virtualization environment using VMWare Enterprise. The

production cluster has three hosts. These hosts will be upgraded summer of 2015 to tie into the new

10 Gbps network core. The hosts have a lot of horsepower and were phased in over the last three

years. They have a full three years of productivity left. Storage for the production VMWare

environment is on an HP P2000 G3 SAN. This SAN is replicated to our Greentree facility for disaster

recovery.

WCCC has need to run services for programs off the main campus. It is typical to run VMWare ESXi at

those locations. WCCC also has a non-production VMWare environment on the main campus used

for development and image creation. Storage for the non production VMWare environment is on an

old EMC Clarion AX4 SAN.

Detailed information on the Active Directory Sites, virtual hosts, virtual guests, physical servers, ip

addressing and routing, licensing, and service applications is on file in the Technology Department

office.

WCCC must keep the virtual environment up to date and in reliable working order. Production and

nonproduction hosts on the main campus are all running ESXi 5.5. VMWare recently launched version

6.0. WCCC will upgrade to version 6 sometime during the 2015-16 school year.

Needs Assessment:

The VMWare hosts require maintenance and upgrades to the operating systems. VMWare guests

also require maintenance and upgrades. Standalone servers require annual re-evaluation to

determine if the service unit should be virtualized. Standalone servers must be maintained and

updated.

Strategies:

Production VMWare Host 10 GbE Upgrades

Production VMWare Guests

Production Standalone Servers

Non-Production and Satellite Hosts

Upgrade Paths

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Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Production VMWare Host 10 GbE Upgrades

Strategy 1 Description: WCCC’s three current production VMWare hosts are HP Gen8 Servers. The

first one was phased in in 2012, the second in 2013, and the third in 2014. These servers come with a

3 year warranty with the first Host, WCCCESX04 having the warranty expire July 2015. The warranty

on these servers will need to be extended to cover three more years.

These servers hold 2 physical processors each and WCCC is licensed for up to five Hosts, 2 processors

each. The servers have 32 logical processors and 128 GB of RAM. There are available slots to upgrade

the RAM further if desired. VMWare Enterprise is renewed annually through our Channel Partner,

Forward Edge.

During the summer of 2015, these servers will be upgraded to tie into the new 10GbE core. Guests

will be migrated onto two of the hosts while one is in maintenance mode being upgraded. A new riser

card will be installed in the host and two 2-port 10GbE network adapter cards will be installed in each

host. The VMWare switch ports will broken out as follows:

● 1x 10GbE port - VMWare Management and VMotion

● 1x 10GbE port - ISCSI (connection to SAN)

● 2x 10GbE ports - VMWare Guests

Currently the configuration is 2 Gbps for vmotion and management, 2 Gbps for ISCSI, and 4 Gbps for

guests. The upgrade will be significant.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Production VMWare Guests

Strategy 2 Description: The Technology Department has been gradually upgrading servers to

Windows Server 2012R2. That is the base standard and there are several servers to bring up to that

standard. Documentation exists in the Technology Department for these servers for IP address

information, specification (CPU/RAM/HDD), and purpose. The learning management system, Moodle,

runs on Linux CentOS 7. There is also a linux server for the Citrix Netscaler Gateway. There are a total

of 28 servers running in the production VMWare environment. The breakdown of server types is:

● Domain Controllers - 2

● File Servers - 5

● Application Servers - 14 (1 - backups, 2 - building systems, 4 - instruction and learning, 1 -

licensing, 1 - professional development, 1 - remote access, 4 - security)

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● Database Servers - 2

● Print Servers - 2

● Web Servers - 3

It is essential that these servers be patched and updated regularly and that the VMware Hosts

themselves be patched and updated regularly.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Production Standalone Servers

Strategy 3 Description: The following servers remain in a standalone capacity:

Exchange 2010 - This server is currently tied to Cisco unified communications 7. The phone system is

scheduled for an upgrade summer of 2015. At that time, Exchange 2010 will be upgraded to

Exchange 2013. This is essential as the Outlook Web Client (OWA) is not compatible with modern

web browsers. The holdup on this upgrade is compatibility with the unified messaging system. At the

time of upgrade, a decision will have to be made to keep Exchange as a standalone server or to

virtualize it. Exchange currently has 8 logical CPUs, 24 GB RAM (datastore limited to 18 GB), and

minimal storage (Information Store is housed on the SAN). Virtualizing Exchange would require

greater limitations on RAM.

Barracuda Email Archiver 350 - This unit journals all activity from the Exchange server and from our

staff email accounts in Google Apps for Education. This unit will remain standalone. The maintenance

on this unit was renewed for 3 years in 2014. This unit must be considered for replacement in 2017.

Citrix Xenapp 7.5 - This remote access server was installed in 2014. It is an HP Gen 8 server with 40

logical processors and 64 GB of memory. This unit will remain standalone. It came with a 3-year

warranty. This unit runs Server 2012R2 and holds 90 terminal services Client Access Licenses (Cals).

It has licensing for 60 concurrent Citrix clients. WCCC pays Citrix annually for software assurance

(upgrades) but currently does not hold a Citrix maintenance contract.

WDS12 - This server’s sole purpose is to run Windows Deployment Services. This server will be

virtualized.

VS01 and VS02 - These two servers run Server 2008 R2 and run Milestone XProtect for our Video

Surveillance system.

BAK02 - This is a 14 TB storage unit that holds archive data and backups from off campus. This server

was donated by a local business, Go-Concepts, Inc.

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BAK03 - This is a 20 TB storage unit dedicated to EMC Networker and holds all of our to-disk backup

data. This server was donated by a local business, Go-Concepts, Inc.

Elara - This is a 12 TB storage unit in need of new disk drives. This unit resides in the Administration

building for the purpose of layer 2 disk backup of critical data. The parking lot serves as a firestop in

the disaster recovery plan.

It is desire to virtualize when possible for the energy savings and for disaster recovery. Some units

have specialties that prevent virtualization and some are too resource intensive to virtualize. All of

these servers must be maintained, patched, and kept up to date.

Strategy 4

Strategy 4 Title: Non-Production and Satellite Hosts

Strategy 4 Description: VMWare ESXi is a free product. VMWare charges for management, high

availability (HA), and disaster avoidance (DA) features. WCCC subscribes to these features in the

production environment. When it comes to hypervisors, VMWare and Microsoft are the leaders.

WCCC began down a path with VMWare in 2009 when Microsoft HyperV was in its infancy and

frankly, not a robust product. WCCC has since stayed with VMWare, although bench tests with

HyperV in 2014 proved that it is now a feature rich and fully capable hypervisor.

There are many benefits to using a hypervisor including the following:

● Energy savings (fewer running power supplies)

● Cost savings (less hardware to buy and maintain)

● Attached storage for file services (SAN or NAS) makes it easy to move, manipulate, and

upgrade

● Backup via snapshot

● Bare metal recovery at the machine level with data drive reattachment

● Development for test environment and deployment images

● Ease of moving a server from host to host and between non-production and production

● Ease of creating and deleting guests and powering them off and on remotely by connecting to

the host

WCCC is fortunate to have their original Clarion AX4 SAN still operational with 4 Gbps I/0 and 10 TB of

storage. This SAN is now dedicated to the development environment where images are developed for

deployment, operating systems and policies are tested, and applications are bench tested for

feasibility and configuration steps prior to production. The Clarion is attached to two of WCCC’s

original VMWare hosts each with 8 logical processors and 24 GB of RAM. While these hosts are not

power houses, one must consider that it is rare for more than three to four guests be running

simultaneously. There is one production level guest that runs 24x7 on this environment: VMWare

VirtualCenter for the production environment. VirtualCenter manages the production hosts, high

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availability, and disaster avoidance. Therefore, it cannot exist within the production VMWare

environment. It would be a shame to run it on independent hardware when a fully capable

non-production VMWare environment exists.

WCCC leases a VMWare guest on a host at the OECN ITC SWOCA. This guest has 2 vCPUs, 4 GB RAM

and a 40 GB HDD. This guest is an off-site domain controller and handles Active Directory and DNS

services for WCCC programs at Fenwick, Little Miami, Lebanon, Springboro, and Franklin High Schools.

It also handles DHCP for programs at Lebanon and Franklin High Schools where no other service units

exist and does backup DHCP service for the other satellite locations.

WCCC’s Active Directory consists of 4 sites. The main campus has two domain controllers. The

domain controller at SWOCA is the site called Satellites which serves the program locations

mentioned in the previous paragraph. The Greentree Health Science Academy and the Kings Mills

South Campus each have a single domain controller for their site with full active directory services.

The Kings Mills South Campus is segmented on the Kings Local School District network with four

private VLANs routed back to WCCC through SWOCA. This Active Directory site, WCCCSouth serves

WCCC programs both at the South Campus (leased space) and at Kings High School. The circuit at the

Greentree Health Science Academy is routed back to WCCC through SWOCA and is part of WCCC’s

internal class A subnet.

Greentree serves as our disaster recovery center. It has a beautiful IT room, plenty of rack space, our

backup SAN (HP P2000 G3), plenty of power, and a good cooling system. WCCC has 2 VMWare ESXi

hosts there. One host is retired from our original production environment with 8 logical processors

and 24 GB of RAM. The other, a donated server, has 16 logical processors and 48 GB of RAM. Each of

these hosts only runs a single guest. However, with our backup SAN in house, our production

environment can be recovered at this location and essential services can be restored as part of the

disaster recovery plan. The stronger of these servers was donated to the District by a local business,

Go-Concepts, Inc.

The Kings Mills South Campus is our remote location with the highest bandwidth. However, the

technology closet is too small to make good use of that location for disaster recovery. Heat is an issue

and closet is cooled by a portable air conditioner. WCCC has two VMWare hosts in this location. The

primary runs services (8 logical processors, 16 GB RAM), the backup (16 logical processors, 24 GB

RAM) backups up the primary and is there for disaster recovery. The backup unit would be

transported to the greentree facility for recovery should a natural disaster strike the main campus.

The lesser of these servers was donated to the District by Go-Concepts, Inc.

It is common for the WCCC Technology Department to utilize two low powered Virtual Hosts (2 - 4

logical cores, 8 GB RAM) for services at satellite locations. Typically these machines are nothing more

than a desktop computer with virtualization built into the CPU. Each location requires access to a

domain controller. Some locations require file services. All locations with more than two programs

require the ability of the Technology Department to image computers over the Local Area Network.

All hosts run either ESXi 5.1 or 5.5. They all need to be upgraded to a common platform and the move

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to version 6.0 will take place during the 2015-16 school year. All guest operating systems are either

2012 or 2012 R2. They all need to be upgraded to 2012R2.

● Franklin High School

○ Single Program, 30 PCs

○ Satellite AD Site, no other services

○ Has need for file services for Project Lead the Way students for the 2015-16 school

year.

● Springboro High School

○ Four Programs, 82 PCs

○ Satellite AD Site

○ Two ESXi Hosts (1: 4 logical CPUs, 8 GB RAM, 3 TB Storage, 2: 4 logical CPUs, 8 GB

RAM, 2 TB Storage)

○ Guest 1 - file services for staff and students, Runs on Host 1

○ Guest 2 - Windows Deployment Services (only run as needed), Runs on Host 1

○ Guest 3 - Backs up Guests one and Two, runs on Host 2

○ There is a new STEM program under the Project Lead the Way being placed at

Springboro Jr High School for the 2015-16 school year. Networking will need to be

worked out for this program with Springboro’s managed IT services company,

Forward Edge.

● Greentree Health Science Academy

○ Three Secondary programs, all Adult Medical programs and a total of 60 PCs.

○ Greentree AD Site (GHSA)

○ Two ESXi Hosts with all data presented via ISCSI from backup SAN (HP P2000G3)

○ Guest 1 - GHSA Domain Controller, DHCP, DNS, runs on host1

○ Guest 2 - Windows Deployment Services (only run as needed), runs on host 1

○ Guest 3 - Receives backups from Guests 1 and 2, runs on host 2

○ This location does not use local file services. If put in place, Distributed File Services

(DFS) would be a must as staff move between campuses. This situation is constantly

monitored for saturation of the 50 Mbps bandwidth between the main campus and

this facility. WCCC currently has 8 full time staff and no more than 60 nodes engaged

in network use simultaneously. Typical use is under 40 nodes simultaneously.

○ The circuit for this facility comes off contract June 30, 2016. It is desired to increase

WCCC’s bandwidth to a minimum of 100 Mbps at that time. Erate is filed on this

circuit whose function is the sole Internet and transport conduit for these students.

● Fenwick High School

○ In October, we established a private VLAN on the Fenwick network with routing back

to the WCCC Main Campus via Swoca. This site has 60 PCs.


○ One physical server (Celeron Processor, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, 2008R2) currently does

file services and DHCP for this location.

○ One ESXi host (4 logical processors, 8 GB RAM)

■ 1 guest receives backup of physical server

○ The physical server needs to be retired and another virtual host deployed

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○ This site needs deployment services

● Lebanon High School

○ WCCC is adding a third program to this site for 2015-16. This site will require local

services. It will have 60 PCs and 20 Chromebooks.


○ Need to deploy two virtual hosts - one for active duty for file and deployment services,

the other for backup

● Kings Mills South Campus and High school

○ The South Campus has 130 nodes and a 1 gbps pipe to SWOCA through the Kings Local

Schools network. Because of the bandwidth, local file services are not provided and

staff/student files are accessed from the Main Campus.

○ Kings High School has five programs (150 nodes: 60 MAC, 60 PC, 30 Chromebook )

and a 1 gbps pipe to SWOCA through the Kings Local Schools network. Due to the

intensity of the MAC environment for the two Digital Design labs, they have local file

services on an OSX Yosemite server using AFP protocol. We found flaws in Apple’s

implementation of SAMBA when connecting to Windows shares under OSX Mavericks.

The other programs have local file services hosted at the South Campus for students.

Staff files are are accessed from the Main Campus.

○ South Campus AD Site (SC)

○ Two ESXi Hosts

○ Guest 1 - SC Domain Controller, DHCP, DNS, runs on host1

○ Guest 2 - Windows Deployment Services (only run as needed), runs on host 1

○ Guest 3 - Receives backups from Guests 1 and 2, runs on host 2

● Little Miami High School

○ Four programs, 106 PCs

○ One physical server (4 logical cores, 8 GB RAM, 1.5 TB HDD, 2008R2) currently does

backups of a guest file server

○ One ESXi Host (4 logical cores, 8 GB Ram, 2 TB HDD)

■ Single Guest runs file and deployment services

○ The physical server at this location needs to be virtualized and upgraded to 2012R2.

○ Bandwidth at this location is at 1 Gbps with a private vlan on the Little Miami network

and connectivity through SWOCA

Volume licensing for Microsoft servers is different for a virtualized environment. Microsoft has

eliminated the distinction between standard and enterprise servers. Now the breakdown is Server or

DataCenter Server and the licenses are applied to physical machines rather than virtual guests:

● A virtual host can use a Server license if it hosts no more than 2 virtual guests

● A virtual host with more than 2 virtual guests requires a DataCenter license and can host as

many virtual Windows servers as desired (hardware permitting)

VMWare licensing is renewed annually with 24x7 support for the production environment. The

non-production and satellite environment is not under support of any kind. For so long as VMWare

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allows use of the ESXi hypervisor for free with no more than 2 physical CPUs, WCCC will continue to

use this product. Should licensing change in the future at a cost to the district, WCCC will consider

switching to HyperV.

Strategy 5

Strategy 5 Title: Upgrade Paths

Strategy 5 Description: WCCC has a VMWare partner, Forward Edge. We just completed a three

year phase in/phase out of VMWare hosts. While the Technology Department is comfortable and

knowledgeable about installing, using, and maintaining the VMWare environment, it is a good idea to

bring in a partner to perform phase in/out of hardware and to do major revision upgrades on the

production environment.

It is not anticipated to see a dramatic increase in services over the next three years. However,

services do shift from product to product and their revisions do become more resource intensive. Our

current VMWare hosts (ages 1,2,and 3 years) can handle up to 32 logical cores (16 logical cores for

each of 2 processors). We currently use 8 core processors with hyperthreading. We typically do not

like to perform CPU upgrades, but this does remain an upgrade option. These hosts have 12 DIMM

slots per processor with 4 channels and 3 slots per channel. We are currently utilizing 128 GB of RAM.

These hosts can take up to 768 GB of RAM. This is another area that these units can be upgraded.

There is no reason for our current VMWare hosts to be retired in the next three years. At that time, a

new phase in/out plan will need to be formed. When a VM host is retired, it is migrated to

non-production or disaster recovery use.

VMWare has release a new major revision, version 6.0. Our current production environment is

running version 5.5U2. WCCC typically waits several months before jumping onto a new revision.

However, it makes sense to perform this upgrade during the 2015-16 school year. As stated in a

previous goal, Erate Category 2, the three production hosts will be upgraded this summer to 10 Gbps

network adapters to attach to the new core switch.


The WCCC Technology Department staff is cross-trained in managing and maintaining the virtual

environment. The team takes every opportunity available for more established members to mentor

and train newer members. It is imperative that each team member can troubleshoot and work

within the VMWare environment including the attachment of network storage, backup/restore

functions, and perform disaster recovery operations.

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A train the trainer approach will be used for all turn-key solution upgrades handed off to the

Technology Department. The installation vendor will hold responsibility for the project until

completion. Completion means that the vendor has trained the Technology Department staff and

the Technology Director has signed off on the project as complete. Payment can be issued only after

completion of the project.


The staff evaluation process will be utilized by the Technology Director to assess the proficiency of

team members within the virtual environment and to recommend and provide training when

necessary.

If the environment is upgraded by an external vendor and the hand-off of the project from the vendor

to the Technology Department is complete, the Technology Department has indicated that their

professional development on the new system is sufficient.


100% of the Technology Department team will be proficient working within and maintaining the

virtual environment.


Technology Director

Where are we now? Adoptive

Where do we want to be? Innovative

Evaluation Process


● Successful completion of the 10 GbE upgrade to the production hosts

● OS Version and patch history for guest servers

● Virtualization of WDS12

● Upgrade of Exchange Server to version 2013 and the latest service pack

● OS Version and patch history for standalone servers

● VMWare Host version and patch history

● Installation of file services for Franklin High School and Lebanon High School Programs

● Virtualization of physical servers at Fenwick High School and Little Miami High School

● Completion of the upgrade from VMWare 5 to VMware 6


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Completion components to evaluating this goal include:

● Installation and configuration of 10GbE network adapters in the production environment

● P2V of WDS12, Thebe (Fenwick), and Metis (Little Miami)

● Upgrade of the Exchange Server

● Installing file services for Lebanon and Franklin with folder redirection for students

● Leveling the VMWare version across the environment to v5.5 U2

● Upgrading the VMWare version across the environment to v6

The Technology Department runs reports in Lansweeper to determine server unit OS Version and

patch level. Some servers must be upgraded during down time. File servers are easily done with

network storage. In order to upgrade some application servers to the latest release, the application

must be reinstalled. Often, this is best done at the next refresh of the application. Therefore, it is

desired not to have multiple application services on a single server. These decisions will be evaluated

on a case by case basis.


● District services will be more responsive

● Administrative overhead for maintenance routines will be lowered

● Servers will be fully patched and up to date

● All VMWare hosts will be on the same platform and revision

● WCCC will have a standard design satellite locations to make things clean and recoverable for

the Technology Department

● WCCC will continue to utilize a robust non-production environment for field testing operating

systems and applications and for building deployment images

● WCCC’s VMWare host operating system will be current and patched


Technology Director

Estimated Budget

2016: $7,700

2017: $5,500

2018: $5,500

Budget Notes

The cost associated with the production host network adapter upgrade was included in goal 2.

2016 includes an estimate for purchased services for upgrade to VMWare 6

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Goal 4

Goal: Telephone System

Goal Type: Technology Infrastructure

Goal Title: Telephone System

Goal Description: WCCC currently has a Cisco Unified Communications telephone system, version 7,

with Callmanager and Unity Voice Messaging. The system software went end of life Jan 1, 2015 and

the system hardware goes end of life July 1, 2015. The system must be replaced.

WCCC accepted bids from vendors during Erate season this year. WCCC looked at both managed and

premises equipment solutions. With the phase out of telephony in the Erate program, WCCC would

be eligible for 40% reimbursement for FY2015 and 20% reimbursement for FY2016. These levels of

reimbursement were not found to be sufficient to warrant the front end and ongoing cost of a

managed solution. In fact, WCCC found that the total cost of ownership of a managed solution over

six years to be nearly double that of a premises solution.

WCCC accepted bids for Cisco, Avaya, Mitel, and Shoretel. The Gartner magic quadrants for unified

communications shows Cisco to be the leader with Avaya number 2 and Mitel as an emerging

company. Mitel is in the leaders quadrant for telephony. In the end, the best cost solution turned out

to be Avaya.

The new system will be installed summer of 2015. The Avaya partner on the project will be Total

Systems Integration out of Gallion, Ohio. The project will require training for all staff, including the

Technology Department, and will impact the main campus, Greentree, South Campus, and the Warren

County Airport facility (home runned to WCCC with a 10 mbps circuit). The new system will utilize SIP

protocol which will be a change from the current SCCP protocol in use. Licensing will be for all users

to be Avaya power users providing full mobility with softphone capability over multiple devices (PC,

porting to cell, tablet, etc).

Needs Assessment: With the current system being at end of life, end of support, WCCC needs to

upgrade or replace the current telephone system. WCCC has no desire to go backwards from unified

communications into a lesser technology but rather to move forward into more robust features with

mobility.

Strategies:

New System Implementation and Cutover

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Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: New System Implementation and Cutover

Strategy 1 Description: The new system will be built in parallel to the existing system. The Avaya IP

Office software will be installed on a new WCCC virtual server running in the production VMWare

environment. Each location will have an Avaya voice gateway providing location services for

emergency 911 with an analog POTs line and fallback calling allowing phone to phone dialing if

connectivity to the main campus is severed. The voice gateway on the main campus will have an

analog bridge with port density to connect several fax lines, credit card readers, loud ringing bells in

high bay labs, and a connection to the analog intercom system on the main campus.

Once the service units and gateways are configured and installed and all of the handsets are placed in

their respective location, the system will be switched over.


Training will take place with staff on the use of the system and will be provided by TSI. Additionally,

the Technology Department staff will receive training on building phones and managing the system.

A train the trainer approach will be used. The installation vendor will hold responsibility for the

project until completion. Completion means that the vendor has trained the Technology Department

staff and the Technology Director has signed off on the project as complete. Payment can be issued

only after completion of the project.


When the hand-off of the project from the vendor to the Technology Department is complete, the

Technology Department has indicated that their professional development on the new system is

sufficient.


100% of staff will be proficient in using the new phone system and will take advantage of the new

mobility feature sets.


Technology Director


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Evaluation Process

The following measure will be taken:

● Project completion and sign off by the Technology Director


Completion of the installation of the new system will be evaluated. There will be wrinkles to iron out

and the system will not be considered complete until everyone is trained and the system is fully

functional.


WCCC will have:

● WCCC will have a turn key solution with 3 years of full maintenance and support

● The opportunity to purchase additional maintenance and support

● WCCC will drop the ongoing high cost of Cisco maintenance

● WCCC will save money on the upfront cost of the system and the total cost of ownership.


Technology Director, All Staff

Estimated Budget

2016: $97,000

2017: $0

2018: $0

Budget Notes

The 2016 cost is the bid for a turn key solution

Goal 5

Goal 5: Safe and Secure Access

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Goal Type: Access to Technology

Goal 5 Title: Safe and Secure Access

Goal 5 Description:

WCCC must ensure that students are trained in compliance with the Protecting Children in the 21st

Century Act. This training must include the topics of online behavior, including interacting

with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and regarding cyberbullying

awareness and response. Students must also sign off on the District's Acceptable Use Policy and the

rules and regulations set forth by Board Policy and the Student Code of Conduct.

Teachers must be trained on the material chosen for delivery to students and must agree annually to

the District Acceptable Use Policy, the rules and regulations set forth by Board Policy and the Staff

Handbook.

Needs Assessment:

WCCC serves K-12 students, grades eleven and twelve, at our building FRN. Students use the District

network resources and services. In order to be compliant with the rules set forth by the FCC and

remain eligible for Erate, WCCC must train 100% of the student body on the topics listed in the goal

description.

In addition to the requirement for erate, it is essential that students be trained to develop an online

presence including positive use of social media for job searching and networking with business

contacts. It is essential that our students understand the consequences that negative use of social

media can have on their ability to obtain and sustain meaningful work in their career path. This is one

of the key roles within 21st Century Career Technical education.

Strategies:

1:1 Policy and Filtering

Hardening of Network Services

Staff Procedures

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: 1:1 Policy and Filtering


One of the biggest draws to the Chromebook for our 1:1 initiative is the Google Management Console

(GMC). This feature adds cost to the Chromebook, but is well worth it. The GMC allows WCCC to

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whitelist and blacklist apps and websites. It also allows us to push apps to students that are

purchased district wide or are approved for district wide use. The chromebook is also 100% compliant

with PARCC and AIR testing.

The approved procedure in place to have a site or app to be blacklisted using the GMC is for the

request to be made to the Director of Secondary Education. The Director will investigate and render a

decision. If the decision to to approve the item on the blacklist, he/she will notify the Technology

Department with instruction to add the app or site to the blacklist. This layer of blacklisting occurs on

all 1:1 devices regardless of whether the device is on the school network or using a different or

private Internet connection.

If a teacher wants an app to be purchased for use on student Chromebooks, a request for purchase

must be made of the Director of Secondary Education. Once approved and necessary funds are

allocated, the Director will notify the Technology Department to make the purchase and push the app

to a select group of students or the entire student body.

The GMC also give the Technology Department the ability to track logins to devices by serial number

so that in the event a device is lost or stolen, the last login user and date/time can be determined.

This has already proven to be a useful feature.

The GMC serves as an additional layer of protection above and beyond the District’s web filter.

Currently, web filtering is provided by the ITC, SWOCA, using an IBOSS Security appliance. This device

meets CIPA compliance, but only for the District network. It provides filtering by genre, blacklist,

port, and traffic type. It also provides whitelist override.

WCCC always considers and examines the potential for cloud based proxy, premises proxy, and

premises based web filters. At this time, these options have not proven to be necessary.

WCCC weighed very carefully the idea of leveraging Microsoft devices for the 1:1 initiative. The low

cost of devices released this year make a very competitive option to the Chromebook. However, the

free operating system that comes with these laptops (Windows 8.1 with Bing) cannot be bound to the

Active Directory domain. Therefore, in order to utilize them under the protection of Group Policy

while on the District network, they must be added to the District Volume License for a cost. This

means the machines must be imaged upon receipt (not just enrolled) and reimaged upon graduation

or when a student leaves the District keeping the unit. While Microsoft 365 for Education is attractive

and cost effective, Microsoft does not offer any filtering or policy capability for cloud devices. The

lack of this type of control makes the Chromebook with the GMC the superior product for WCCC’s 1:1

initiative at this time.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Hardening of Network Services

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Strategy 2 Description: WCCC currently operates as a LAN segment of our ITC, SWOCA. We are

firewalled by SWOCA from their other districts. We rely on SWOCA for web filtering, NAT, and

firewalling our Internet access. We remain under SWOCA contract through 2019 at which time the

Erate process will put our Internet access back out to bid.

All web facing servers in our district are encrypted with SSL. The Technology Department monitors

security vulnerabilities and take action should an SSL rekey be necessary. WCCC ensured that Internet

facing servers were not vulnerable to Heartbleed, Shellshock, Poodle, and have ensured all SSL uses

secure levels TLS and SHA2 hashes. We undergo security audits by SWOCA and comply with any

findings.

WCCC will continue to research and investigate the potential to further secure and harden the

network from external threats by adding additional layers of security. Investigation will include

discussion with vendors for solutions and may include an external 3rd party security audit.

For endpoint security against virus and malware, the District uses Sophos endpoint security. For

Windows units, this is combined with User Account Control. The District license for Sophos expires in

July, 2016. The Technology Department must bench test and evaluate endpoint security software for

Windows and OSX in order to make the most effective purchase in 2016. For the 1:1 initiative, if a

Chrome OS system gets corrupted, the student brings the unit to the Technology Department Office

where the unit is wiped (returned to factory settings), re-enrolled in the GMC, and re-synched to the

student’s Google Drive. The speed with which this can be done was another huge draw to the Google

platform. To date, we have had minimal instances of corruption in Chrome OS. Most of the

corruption cases have been the result of loss of power (dead battery) during a Chrome OS update.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Staff Procedures

Strategy 3 Description: The Technology department has put together use guidelines for students with

their Chromebooks using the LMS, Moodle. Another strategy for this goal is for the Technology

Department to develop a technology security policy and procedures manual for staff and students. All

staff and students have secure logins regardless of their platform (MAC or PC and Chrome OS).

However, we are our own greatest enemy. Staff and students need clear procedures, reminders, and

training on securing their workstation and ensuring password level security. Much of the

documentation and information to be incorporated into the manual already exist, but are fragmented

through various types and dates of communication. The strategy is to organize and consolidate these

communications into a concise manual.

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A Train the Trainer approach is used for the Internet Safety and Cyberbullying unit delivered to

students. Teachers are taken through the module and trained on delivery to students.

The Technology Department staff is cross trained in the procedures and use of filters both in the GMC

and the IBoss web filter. If formal training needs to occur for IBoss, staff can be sent to SWOCA for

training. If decisions are made to do a security audit and to take additional steps to harden the

environment, the Technology Department staff will be trained.

When the Technology Department staff completes the construction of student and staff Technology

Security Policy and Procedures handbooks, these documents will be posted on the respective

Technology training site in the LMS. Staff will require training on the procedures outlined in the

handbook and they in turn will train students.



● Successful delivery of Internet Safety and Cyberbullying to students

● Successful rollout of Technology Security Policy and Procedures handbook3

The staff evaluation process will be utilized by the Technology Director to assess the proficiency of

team members using the GMC and the IBoss web filter and to recommend and provide training when

necessary.


100% of students will be cyber safe

WCCC will have no instances of Cyberbullying

100% of students and staff will follow proper Technology Security Policy and Procedures


IT Director, Teachers

Where are we now? Adoptive

Where do we want to be? Innovative

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Evaluation Process


● # of discipline infractions regarding Internet Safety and Cyberbullying

● # of requests for blacklisted sites in the GMC and IBoss filter

● Staff survey data on the effectiveness of the Technology Security and Procedures handbook


WCCC takes student discipline regarding technology infractions very seriously. WCCC prefers to be

proactive rather than reactive. When discipline infractions occur, the Director of Secondary Education

works with the Technology Department to seal off the potential for a second instance of the

infraction. Discipline infractions are monitored as a means of success. Parent interaction with the

District is also monitored and parent input into the 1:1 initiative is sought both prior and during the

school year.

Completion of the technology security policy and procedure manual will be measured for evaluation

as will reminders and training.


● WCCC students will be protected on the Internet with their 1:1 devices to the fullest extent

possible.

● WCCC will seal off any discipline infractions that occur over the use of technology.

● The WCCC network will be better secured from external threats.

● Data at all levels, whether student, teacher, administrative support staff, or administration

will be better secured.


Technology Director

Estimated Budget

2016: $1,000

2017: $1,000

2018: $1,000

Budget Notes

The estimated budget reflects the ongoing renewal of Ohio Public Schoolworks which hosts the

Internet Safety and Cyberbullying training module. If WCCC were to seek a 3rd party security audit,

additional funds would be required.

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Goal 6

Goal 6: Public, Parent, Student Access

Goal Type: Access to Educational Information and Applications

Goal Title: Public, Parent, Student Access

Goal Description: Improve Public, Parent, and Student access to Education Information and

Technology Services.

.

Needs Assessment: We are in compliance with public records legislation and archiving of documents.

We continuously try to improve our public facing services to better serve our community.

Strategies:

Classroom Management Software

Growth of Moodle

Google Classroom and other Apps

District Website and Social Media

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Classroom Management Software

Strategy 1 Description: The deeper we go into our 1:1 initiative, the more important a stable

classroom management system becomes. Features desired are, over a wireless connection, for the

teacher to be able to:

● Control student screens for demonstration

● Send document immediately to the student screen

● Filter the software students are able to execute

● Filter Internet access for students during the class period

● Monitor student activity on the fly

● Collect assignments back from students when finished

We currently have licensing for a Classroom Management Software package called Lanschool.

Lanschool meets all of our needs on both wired and wireless networks so long as the operating

system is Windows or OSX. Unfortunately, it is not effective for Chrome OS. Teachers in

Windows/OSX environments are using Lanschool effectively and do not want to give it up. We do not

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want to go to two products. Lanschool’s new version 7.8 does not deliver as promised. There are

continuous authentication prompts and it is impossible for teachers to keep students in the digital

classroom. Real time monitoring has such significant lag when it is working that it is not useful.

Lanschool has been developing this product for several years and we had hoped that it would be fully

operational and effective by the time our licensing was due for renewal during summer of 2015.

There are three products on the market that are Chrome extensions rather than apps. We beta

tested one of these products, Netsupport School, one year ago. We found Netsupport to be lacking

from our experience with Lanschool on Windows/OSX environments. At that time, Netsupport’s

Chrome extension was new. Reviews have been positive and WCCC will bench test this product

Spring of 2015. Two new products on the market are Crosstec Schoolvue and HP Classroom Manager.

Both products are too new on the Chrome Web Store to have informative reviews. Both offer 30 day

trials and will be bench tested Spring of 2015.

A decision must be made on the software package and a training program must be rolled out for all

teachers. One positive is that the feature set for all four products mentioned is similar and teachers

should be able to easily transfer their knowledge of Lanschool to any of the other products.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Growth of Moodle

Strategy 2 Description: Moodle has proven to be a very effective tool for many things. The

Technology Department began rolling out training in 2012 and built training courses for teachers and

students. Adult education has been getting more actively involved in using Moodle and is now

managing 30% of courses in their environment. Our Moodle server is handling the load well and to

date, we do not see a need to add a second server. Downtime has been minimal, most of which has

been for maintenance windows.

The Secondary Division has had every course taught enrolled in a Moodle online course since 2012.

That year, as teachers trained, many quickly adopted the platform and put a tremendous amount of

effort and work into making this an integral tool in their arsenal. Paper resources were converted into

digital format and posted online. Video and web resources were integrated into courses. Curriculum

was modified for delivery methods and student expectations. In 2013, our Guidance department

started to take hold of Moodle by realizing that students needed access to the online platform in

order to be successful in many classes. The initial requirement for teachers was that all Ohio Blizzard

Bag assignments be posted on Moodle. Some teachers stayed at that level during the 2013-14 school

year while others converted their entire curriculum onto the platform. Growth has been steady.

Online assessment has taken hold. At the Secondary level, growth needs to continue and effort needs

to be made to monitor the level of integration by teachers and assist those who are struggling or not

understanding the potential.

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Adult Education’s integration of Moodle began with the Information Technology Director who placed

every course taught under his supervision into Moodle and made it mandatory for his instructors. The

second coordinator to adopt this philosophy is the Industrial Technologies coordinator who is

planning on migrating his last program, HVAC, this Spring. The Public Safety Services Coordinator has

integrated several courses and plans to expand. The Construction Technologies Coordinator has

expressed interest and plans to begin integration. Medical programs use the Pearson Vue Angel

platform with their purchased curriculum which is an alternative to Moodle. The growth has been

terrific with Adult Education and they have officially placed a request to have a new student

technology training course built by the Technology Department similar to that in place for Secondary.

The Technology Department needs to support and encourage the Adult Education Coordinators and

assist them in integrating Moodle into their courses. There is talk of expanding 1:1 within Adult

Education as well.

Student Services and Administrative staff play a very important role in Moodle integration.

Administrative staff have read only access to all courses so that they can monitor teacher progress

and use their observation of Moodle use into teacher evaluation. Student Services staff including

Guidance Counselors, VOSE coordinators, and Intervention Specialists all have read only access to all

courses so that they can see the content that students are working on and assist them as needed.

This level of monitoring access is in place for both Adult and Secondary Education.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Google Classroom and other Apps

Strategy 3 Description: Google released Google Classroom in 2014. We anticipate the growth and

development for Google Classroom to evolve into a powerful tool. It has a very easy interface and

provides about a third of the features that Moodle provides. At WCCC, Google Classroom cannot be

used in lieu of Moodle because it does not provide a “one stop shop” for a student to access all of

his/her classes. If Google Classroom is adopted by the teacher, it is expected that the teacher link to

their Google Classroom from their Moodle page. This way, students do not have keep track of

multiple websites to access their content.

Google Classroom, like Moodle, is free. The feature set, like Moodle, includes integration with Google

Apps for Education, creation and collection of paperless assignments, progress checking with direct

feedback, grades monitoring, and the ability for students to keep track of what’s due and access their

work quickly and efficiently. Google classroom automatically creates folders in Google Drive for

every assignment to keep students organized and creates student folders in the teacher’s Google

Drive to keep the teacher organized. This feature, for a teacher with over 120 students, can be a

detractor if the teacher does not want to click into 120 folders to track student work. Moodle offers

additional features of discussion boards, calendars, RSS feeds, integrated multimedia (rather than

links), multiple customizable web pages, online assessment, and a wider variety of resource and

activity templates. Together, Moodle used with Google Classroom can be a very powerful tool.

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Another new app that looks engaging is Splashtop Classroom which allows the teacher to interactively

control their multimedia computer (smartboard or projection screen) from their chrome browser on

any mobile device. Teachers can then share access to students allowing for students to view, control,

and annotate lessons directly from their Chrome browser. The cost is $99 per year per teacher and

reviews are very positive.

In 2014 the District made a three-year investment in an app called Peardeck. It is the responsibility of

the Technology Director and the Technology Department to monitor the Chrome Web Store and

network with vendors to determine if an application can be adopted and integrated and to provide

the necessary training to ensure success.

Strategy 4

Strategy 4 Title: District Website and Social Media

Strategy 4 Description: The District website, https://www.mywccc.org has been static for quite a few

years. It is managed by the Public Relations Specialist and is hosted as a contracted service from

ESchoolView. It is important that the website be easy to navigate and provide relevant information at

a glance. The mobile version of the website works well and is very similar to a mobile app in

appearance and interactivity. The website must continue to evolve and be effective in appearance

and access to information.

The Public Relations Specialist also manages social media sites for the District on Facebook, Instagram,

and Twitter. While Facebook has become less relevant with young people, the District page,

https://www.facebook.com/WarrenCountyCareerCenter, is very relevent with parents and adult

students. It currently has over 1600 likes. It is essential to keep relevant information posted and to

screen 3rd party posts. The District Instagram page, https://instagram.com/wcccohio, is relevant for

our clients of all ages. The District twitter account has over 440 followers.

While we are doing a good job getting relevant information onto our website and social media sites,

WCCC can still do a better job marketing these resources and directing our clients to them.


Professional Development Workshops will need to take place for the desired Classroom Management

Software and any purchased apps for relevant staff. Once training is complete, targeted staff should

meet regularly as a user’s group to share ideas.

Workshops for new teachers on development of Moodle courses will be offered. For advanced

teachers using Moodle, workshops fostering the sharing of ideas and methods from master teachers

will be offered.

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http://www.facebook.com/WarrenCountyCareerCenter




● Effectiveness survey of all staff professional development activities


100% of teaching staff will engage students using the interactive features of a good classroom

management software package.


Technology Director

Where are we now? Adequate

Where do we want to be? Advanced

Evaluation Process


● Determination of a classroom management software package that best fits WCCC’s needs

● The % of teachers utilizing classroom management software

● Levels of staff development of their Moodle course sites

● The number of both District level and course level apps purchased from the Chrome Web

store and pushed to student Chromebooks

● Data from Google Analytics to monitor website traffic

● Data from social media metrics to monitor likes, visits, etc


Teacher evaluation will include comments on the use of the classroom management software to

conduct the workflow of the observed class. It will also take into consideration the level of

technology integration and the degree to which the teacher has developed their course’s online

presence in Moodle.


● Workflows will be streamlined and exact in the classroom

● Teachers will be paperless with electronic document flow with their students

● Discipline problems relating to technology use will disappear

● Students will have access to their learning content anytime, anywhere

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● Administration and Student Services staff will have easy access to monitor, evaluate, and/or

assist learning and instruction

● Teachers will have an arsenal of effective tools to engage students interactively with

technology

● WCCC’s clients will be informed of opportunities and events through multiple online resources


Technology Director, Assistant Directors, Director

Estimated Budget

2016: $10,000

2017: $2,000

2018: $2,000

Budget Notes

The estimated budget includes the cost of purchasing a classroom management software package in

2015 and software upgrade assurance in subsequent years.

Goal 7

Goal 7: Data Driven Decision Making

Goal Type: Access to Educational Information and Applications

Goal Title: Data Driven Decision Making

Goal Description: WCCC will increase the use of data to evaluate progress and make decisions for

continuous improvement.

Needs Assessment: This ongoing goal is necessary in today's school. We need to make informed,

justified decisions.

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Common Data Dashboard


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WCCC is in a building process with Intuit Quickbase. Currently, WCCC is in the design and discovery

phase of this project. WCCC has a lot of disparate data for all divisions. Additionally, State Report

card fields are set for data indicators. Our strategic plan addresses those indicators. It is WCCC’s goal

to leverage the investment in Quickbase into a historical data dashboard that can be accessed at

different levels by staff based on their position and role in the organization. Data will be used to set

goals in the strategic planning process for continuous improvement.

Data to be used will include the Secondary, Adult, and PreSchool divisions as well as Financial

Services, Human Resources, Facilities, and Technology Department data. Once the desired data is

determined and the Quickbase structure is developed, data will be entered into the structure on a

regular basis by key staff. Data entry will be limited to those staff with appropriate permissions based

on their role in the organization.

All staff will have the ability to load a portion of the Quickbase dashboard. For some, the view may be

limited to state report card data for their division. Most staff will have read only access.

Data will be stored historically and reports will be generated showing progress in targeted indicators.

Data will be used to determine trends and to make decisions in every area of the organization.


During the discovery phase, key staff are networking with other staff to determine relevant measures

and indicators and how to pull that data into a format that can be automatically imported into

Quickbase. this interaction provides valuable knowledge to both the key staff and the holder of the

data.

Key staff in the design phase will require training in Quickbase. This will be done by workshop,

webinar, and contracted hours of support.

Once the design phase is complete, implementation will require training for each department in each

division. This training will be in a Train the Trainer workshop format.





The Data dashboard will be completely designed and implemented with all key staff knowing their

role and how to use the system.


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EMIS Coordinator, Technology Director, Treasurer, Director of Human Resources, Director of Facilities,

Director of secondary Education, Director of the Preschool, Director of Curriculum, Director of Adult

Education, Superintendent

Where are we now? Minimal

Where do we want to be? Advanced

Evaluation Process


● Successful completion of the discovery phase

● Successful completion of the design phase

● Successful completion of the implementation phase


When each phase is completed, the subsequent phase will begin until the project is complete.


● WCCC will have a secure, online, data dashboard that will provide a quick glance “snapshot”

view of targeted indicators

● Staff with permissions will be able to create reports

● Data available will be in a single location rather than housed in disparate databases

● WCCC will have historical data that will be valuable in strategic planning


EMIS Coordinator, Technology Director, Treasurer, Director of Human Resources, Director of Facilities,

Director of secondary Education, Director of the Preschool, Director of Curriculum, Director of Adult

Education, Superintendent

Estimated Budget

2016: $3,000

2017: $3,000

2018: $3,000

Budget Notes

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The estimated budget includes the monthly cost of Intuit Quickbase. It does not include employee

time on the project.

Goal 8

Goal 8: Service Improvement

Goal Type: Technology Support and Management

Goal Title: Service Improvement

Goal Description: The Technology Department will improve efficiency and response time.

Needs Assessment: We have a great staff and solid practices in place. There is always need to strive

for improvement.

Strategies:

Personnel Distribution

Cross Training

Efficiency and Response Time

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Personnel Distribution

Strategy 1 Description: Our current Technology Department Staff consists of:

Technology Specialist (Coordinator), full time, 7:30-4

Computer Network Technician, Full Time, 7:30-4 , Quantity 3

The Technology Department also takes in summer interns freshly graduated from our Information

Technology programs. The interns perform deployment, imaging, and teardown/putback for summer

cleaning.

WCCC will continue to monitor staff levels as expansion, cost, and types of services continue to be

factors.

The most senior Computer Network Technician on staff will be transitioning into a full time teaching

position beginning August 1, 2015. This staff member will be attending a two week training

workshop in July. In order to make a smooth transition, the Technology Department will be taking on

two interns for summer work and will be waiting until August 1 to replace that full time position. It is

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unknown at this time if replacement will be full time or part time. It is known that the position’s

primary support role will be Adult Education with an evening shift.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Cross Training

Strategy 2 Description: Within the Technology Department, each staff member has different

strengths and roles. In order to keep the District stable and positioned to handle attrition or

catastrophe, the Technology Department staff must have time to meet as a department and cross

train in specialty areas. The Technology Director is responsible to coordinate these exercises and

evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each Department member to determine the cross training

required.

Targeted training includes:

Operating platforms

Servers operation and procedures

Backup and recovery operation and procedures

Disaster recovery procedures

Deployment procedures

Scope of summer work and responsibilities

Due to the nature of Technology service being on demand, 24/7, it is impossible for the Department

to schedule regular meetings. These sessions must be scheduled in a quiet secure location with

adequate access. They must also be well-planned and productive.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Efficiency and Response Time

Strategy 3 Description: The Technology Department is masterful at multi-tasking. Every day has

hundreds of tasks for each staff member, many of which were unexpected. As a team, the

Department will streamline procedures and work with the Treasurer's office and the Superintendent's

office to put measures in place to provide greater efficiency. This is an ongoing strategy.

Currently under investigation is an automated Inventory/Asset tracking system. Currently, this is an

antiquated workflow with duplication of effort by the Technology Department and the Treasurer's

office. Desired is a bar-coded system that can tie into the State inventory system that allows quick

search by key personnel and the ability to scan items for moves and deployment quickly into the

system. This system would eliminate hand written information by the Technology Department

followed by keyed entry of information by the Treasurer's office. It would also allow the Technology

Department to scan in items for repair and make notes as to parts orders, anticipated arrival time,

and completion of task.

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One facet of this strategy is to remain in contact with other districts and Technology Directors to

share ideas, products, and procedures.


Professional Development for Technology Department staff is Trial by Fire. Funds are spent for

certification prep using CBT Nuggets. This will continue. While there are no formal training sessions,

cross training occurs in every area on a 1:1 basis.


The evaluation process of the Computer/Network Technician includes proficiency and recommended

goals and training for staff.


100% of Technology Department staff will be fully cross-trained and able to step into any role.


Technology Director, Computer/Network Technician

Where are we now? Sufficient

Where do we want to be? Increase

Evaluation Process


● Average response time measured by work order approval to close time frame

● Technology Department staff proficiency on each District system

● Efficiency of the Technology Department staff in completing regular tasks


The online ticketing system through Ohio Public Schoolworks provides a historical record of all work

orders completed by the Technology Department including the origination timestamp and the closing

timestamp. Average response time can be measured.

The Technology Director will ensure that Technology Department Staff are adequately cross-trained

and will use the evaluation tool to make recommendations for training and goals. The Technology

Director will also monitor the efficiency of staff as measured by the time to complete regular tasks.

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● The technology department will be adequately staffed to ensure that school is ready to start

● The Technology Department will be capable of handling the loss of a staff member

● The District will improve efficiency, save money, and provide better service to staff and

students.


Technology Director

Estimated Budget

2016: $0

2017: $0

2018: $0

Budget Notes

This is not a budgetary goal.

Goal 9

Goal 9: Managing TCO

Goal 9 Type: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Goal 9 Title: Managing TCO

Goal Description: WCCC will maintain or reduce its Total Cost of Ownership for Technology Items.

Needs Assessment: It is an ongoing goal to reduce the TCO of technology items.

Strategies:

Leasing

Contracted Services

Hazardous Waste Disposal/Technology Recycling

Manufacturer Selection

Life Expectancy of Equipment

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Strategy 1

Strategy 1 Title: Leasing

Strategy 1 Description: Where appropriate, WCCC will lease equipment to reduce the burden of large

up-front cost. Currently, all copier equipment is under lease. As we move toward a paperless

environment, the need for large copiers will decrease. In the past, all MacIntosh computers have been

obtained through a lease-purchase. We own the equipment after the lease period and warranty

expires. This equipment is then available for trade-in, continued use, or auction.

Large IT Infrastructure items are may be purchased under a lease agreement. The decision to lease,

use permanent improvement funds for equipment with life expectancy greater than five years for

building systems, or to make a direct purchase lies with the Treasurer. Factors used in evaluating the

best option include interest rates, return on investment, and the purpose the equipment will serve.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Contracted Services

Strategy 2 Description: WCCC has an efficient Technology Department that has limited external

dependencies for service support. WCCC will continue to monitor services hosted internally and those

contracted out to determine the best cost factor for the work load and the greatest efficiency for

service. With major manufacturers including Cisco, HP, Microsoft, and VMWare, a maintenance

contract via a channel partner is required. The following maintenance is contracted out:

Telephony Line Maintenance (Century Link)

Basic Conduit Internet Maintenance (SWOCA)

WAN Maintenance (SWOCA/Century Link)

Primary website hosting/maintenance (ESchoolView)

Citrix Software Assurance (Citrix)

VmWare Maintenance (Forward Edge)

Surveillance/Security system maintenance ( Forward Edge)

Software Agreement, Microsoft (CDWG)

CLP Agreement, Adobe (Tiger Direct)

Adobe Creative Cloud Agreement (CDWG,MCOECN)

Managed Print Services (DCS Technologies)

EMC Maintenance, Networker (Roundtower Technology)

HP SAN Maintenance (Forward Edge)

HP Server Maintenance (Production VMWare, Forward Edge)

Hosted Wireless (SWOCA)

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The WCCC Technology Department handles the following internally:

Cisco network design

Cisco switch and router programming

Telephony configuration

Microsoft Server Administration

Microsoft Domain Administration

Microsoft SQL Administration

Microsoft Exchange Administration

Microsoft Sharepoint Administration

Application Server Administration including web facing applications (8 total)

Email Archiving Administration

Print Server Administration

MacIntosh Server Administration with Active Directory Integration

HP SAN Configuration and Management

Non-Production Storage Configuration and Management (EMC Clarion)

Open Source Storage for backup, archive, and applications (Openfiler, Windows Storage)

EMC Networker Backup and Recovery Administration

VMWare administration with VCenter

Physical layer wiring and connectivity for network, video, voice

Deployment of video, voice, multimedia, and data systems

Break/Fix and maintenance of video, voice, multimedia, and data systems

With regard to TCO, WCCC continuously monitors the balance between maintenance agreements,

service contracts, and internally provided services. It is always, unequivocally less expensive for the

Technology Department to absorb a major initiative. However, that is not always feasible based on

workload. Most often, once the initiative is in place via contracted services, the Technology

Department then assumes the monitoring and management for the system. It is essential that cost

savings do not result in reduction in services or response time.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Hazardous Waste Disposal/Technology Recycling

Strategy 3 Description: It is essential that all electronic circuit boards and technology hazardous

waste be properly disposed of at end of life. WCCC monitors services both locally and Statewide for

certified technology recycling. Expectations for a technology recycler include:

● certificate of disposal for all items

● low cost (by the pound or by the piece)

● low charge for pick up (by the load or by the hour)

One additional desired feature is the ability to drop off or pick up by the truck or van load.

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Currently, WCCC utilizes the services of Accurate IT Services. WCCC will continue to monitor and seek

the best deal and the lowest price point. Disposal adds to the the TCO of every piece of equipment

purchased. To date, Accurate IT Services have not only provided their service free of cost, they have

paid us a small amount for some items.

WCCC demands that hazardous waste costs be considered when accepting donations of electronic

equipment.

Strategy 4

Strategy 4 Title: Manufacturer Selection

Strategy 4 Description: The easy way to do business is to choose an equipment manufacturer and

dedicate all of your purchasing power to them. WCCC chooses not to engage in this type of

technology purchasing. Rather, WCCC chooses to standardize, not by manufacturer, but by internal

components and functionality. The Technology Director is responsible for setting minimum standards

and choosing the products to be purchased. Often, a particular vendor is desired, not necessarily for

their hardware product, but for the software that supports their hardware. Smart Technologies is an

example of this level of commitment. The Technology Director will constantly study product and

compare offerings against minimum standards to determine the best fit for the district. The district

shall never pay more money for a product or service due to manufacturer or vendor loyalty. While

each area is continuously examined for benefit vs TCO, the following standards are currently in place:

Classroom Interactivity: Decision pending on a move-forward approach, current standard is a Smart

Technologies Interactive Whiteboard and audio amplification system.

Multimedia: Blu-Ray, microphone capable amplifier, wall-mount/ceiling mount speakers

(manufacturer neutral)

Data Networking: Cisco with pending upgrade to HP

Telephony: Cisco with pending upgrade to Avaya

Video Conferencing: Polycom (large group) and Google Hangouts (up to 8 people)

Virtualization: VMWare

Servers: Supermicro and HP

Storage: HP, EMC, and Supermicro

Email Archiving: Barracuda Networks

Video Surveillance: Axis Cameras, Milestone XProtect

Secure Access: S2 Netbox, Active Directory Integration Module, Milestone Integration

PC Computers: Intel Processors and chipsets; Intel, ASUS, or Gigabyte Mainboards; Intel or NVidia

GPU

Network Server Cabinets: Tripp Lite, Belkin, or AMC

UPS Units: APC or Tripp Lite

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Strategy 5

Strategy 5 Title: Life Expectancy of Equipment

Strategy 5 Description: When planning for budgeting and for TCO, one of the most important

statistics is the life expectancy of the equipment. This timeline includes a period under which the

equipment should be taken off a replacement maintenance agreement. The Technology Director will

monitor timelines and maintenance agreements to ensure the District is not paying for maintenance

on older items that would be a new purchase upon failure. The Technology Director is also

responsible to monitor timelines prior to planning and budgeting.

Life expectancy is a variable concept. For computers, not only is there hardware to consider, but also

the software and operating platform. If minimum standards for operating systems cannot be met, the

hardware is no longer a quality asset. For networking, bandwidth for connected hardware is another

factor in addition to the hardware itself.

Here are current life expectancy guidelines:

Network Switches: 5 years

Computers: 5 years

Laptops: 4 years

Cell Phones: 2 years

Servers: 5 years

Storage units/drives: 4 years

The minimum standard for the 2015-16 school year shall be:

● Network Core: Redundant, 10 GbE to the SAN, VMWare Environment, and IDFs

● Network Edge Switches: 1 Gbps to the desktop

● Computers: Dual core processor, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB HDD

● Laptops: Dual core processor, 2 GB RAM, 250 GB HDD

● Servers - Production Hosts: Dual Proc with 32 logical cores, 128 GB RAM

● Servers - StandAlone Hosts: Dual core processor, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD

● Servers - Storage: Dual Core Processor, 4 GB RAM, 6 TB in Raid 5

● SAN - Production: ISCSI Protocol, 40 Gbps I/O, 24 TB in Raid 6

The evaluation of equipment lifecycle is critical. The life expectancy guidelines are estimates that

should be exceeded. During the 2014-15 school year, WCCC has operated 9 year old switches and

computers that are 10 years old that have gotten the job done.


The Technology Director holds responsibility to inform the Treasurer, Superintendent, Directors, and

Board of Education of the TCO calculations behind every decision on major technology initiatives. This

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information should be presented both verbally and in written format so that all parties understand

the decision process and the impact of TCO on the District.


The following items will be measured:

● Documentation passed from the Technology Director to the Treasurer, Superintendent,

Directors, and Board of Education


The Technology Budget for the district will be a well known figure along with the TCO calculations that

go into the decision making process.


Technology Director

Where are we now? Some

Where do we want to be? More

Evaluation Process

The following items will be measured:

● The number of leased items and the TCO impact of leasing them

● Annual amount of purchased services funds spent on Technology

● TCO calculations made when considering purchasing services vs in house implementation

● Annual cost of Technology Recycling

● Each year standards for hardware will be evaluated and upgraded

● The annual number of hardware failures for a given hardware standard

● TCO calculations for raising a hardware standard and replacing assets


The decision to lease or purchase lies with the Treasurer. The Technology Director will make

recommendations to the Treasurer along with TCO calculations for that decision making process.

Purchased Services through qualified partners are essential to technology systems upgrade and

installation. Sometimes hosted services serve the district best. The funds spent annually on

purchased and hosted services will be monitored and evaluation against in-house TCO. Funds spent

on Technology Recycling will also be monitored.

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Hardware sets are purchased every year. Each year, the number of failures for a hardware set must

be analyzed. This data helps determine when to disinvest in a hardware set and seek replacement.

The TCO calculations behind these decisions impact the level of hardware standard set by the

Technology Director.


● Reduction of initial cost followed by low interest financing will save money and provide

students with equipment required for success

● WCCC will provide the highest degree of service at the lowest TCO by balancing contracted

services with in house services.

● WCCC will remain compliant with federal, state, and local regulations regarding hazardous

waste for electronic equipment and will participate in recycling efforts.

● WCCC will maintain the highest level of standard for technology equipment while monitoring

to ensure the lowest possible TCO.

● WCCC will be proactive in ensuring that systems have proper uptime and serve students and

staff well


Technology Director

Estimated Budget

2016: $46,500

2017: $46,500

2018: $46,500

Budget Notes

The estimated budget is the average expense of purchased services including hosted services,

installation of new systems, technology recycling, and maintenance agreements. This does not

include all contracted services listed in Category 2 as several have been referenced in other budget

areas of this document.

Goal 10

Goal 10: Disaster Recovery

Goal 10 Type: Infrastructure Management

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Goal 10 Title: Disaster Recovery

Goal Description: Disaster can be defined as data loss, data theft, natural disaster, or other damage

to technology systems and infrastructure. It is essential to have a plan in place with tested recovery

methods to ensure that the district can survive and minimize the impact of any type of disaster.

Needs Assessment: The District must have an effective plan in place.

Strategies:

Data Loss/Theft

Student Data Recovery

Staff Data Recovery

Service Unit Recovery

Fire-Stop Protection

Strategy

Strategy 1 Title: Data Loss/Theft


WCCC is responsible for the personal information provided by staff and clients. Laws protecting

personal information, such as HIPAA, must be complied with. Laws regarding public records requests

must be complied with. WCCC has board policy and staff procedures that protect the district and

staff/client data. Potential vulnerabilities for data include insecure email, unencrypted versions of

documents containing sensitive information, and removeable storage or mobile devices which

contain documents with sensitive information.

WCCC needs to develop a formal encryption policy for such documents. First, a decision must be

made on the encryption software.

The highest rated open source (free) product for encryption is VeraCrypt which is forked from the old

TrueCrypt project. Veracrypt can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or encrypt an entire

drive partition using AES, Serpent, or Twofish ciphers. One of the key benefits of Veracrypt is that it is

cross platform serving Windows, OSX, and Linux.

Another highly rated package that is open source (free) is AxCrypt for Windows. While limited to just

the Windows operating system, staff dealing with sensitive data typically work with computers using

Windows. AxCrypt offers right-click > encryption for files and folders. This software does not work

at the partition or volume level and it only supports 128 bit AES encryption ciphers.

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Windows Bitlocker has the ability to encrypt an entire disk drive or volume on a Windows computer

and is very simple to use. Bitlocker to go is an effective way to encrypt the entire contents of a flash

media drive.

GPG is an open source version of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). The software has a command line core

and there are many gui shells that can interface with GPG. GPG allows for encryption of emails, files,

and entire volumes with multiple encryption ciphers.

Finally, there is file application level encryption. 7ZIP is our default archive utility and has terrific file

level encryption. With 7ZIP, the user has to pack and unpack encrypted files which can be more

cumbersome than the true encryption packages listed above. Each Microsoft Office Package and

Adobe Acrobat Professional have the ability to set an access level password on a file. While this is not

true encryption, it does offer some level of protection for a document.

No matter which product is selected, key personnel will need to be trained on its use. Additionally,

procedures and methods for use must be developed and published. Passphrases must be

standardized. Finally, once in place, a strategy for handling staff transition must be put into effect.

While encryption makes theft of data much more difficult, it is not a fool-proof system. Data can be

breached in a number of ways from social engineering to hacking. WCCC must have a plan in place to

protect clients and staff should a breach occur.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 Title: Student Data Recovery


WCCC uses group policy to redirect the My Documents, Desktop, and favorites folders on PCs to

central storage on the production SAN for all Windows based client computers. The file server

housing this data is backed up using EMC Networker software with a full backup every two weeks and

daily incrementals in between. Networker is a virtual machine that backs up to a physical disk storage

unit called Bak02. The Technology Department will recover older versions of files (up to two weeks)

upon request. No copies of student data beyond EMC Networker backups are made. With the 1:1

Chromebook initiative, use of student data on the SAN is decreasing annually. Students using public

computer labs, Media Center laptops, and studying Career Technical programs with computer labs are

using their redirected storage regularly.

Two student programs tend to generate a lot of data: Graphic Arts and Digital Design. The

technology department will institute a storage unit dedicated to these two programs for the 2015-16

school year for transitional data and work projects.

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The restoration of Student data using EMC Networker is extremely fast. As a virtual machine,

networker is replicated to our Greentree Health Science Academy facility and can be recovered from

there to any location.

Student data is moved into an archive directory upon a student leaving WCCC. The archive directory

is typically purged during the fall of the next school year.

All WCCC students have Google Apps for Education accounts with unlimited storage and the good

faith of Google to keep data intact. Students are encouraged to use their Google Drive as their

primary storage location. Naturally, student data generated on Chromebooks is stored in Google

Drive. It is recommended that students back up all files housed on WCCC storage to their Google

Drive.

Students in satellite programs do not have their data redirected to the production SAN. It is a better

practice to keep data on the local area network. For satellite locations, the Technology Department

sets up two service units (typically a VMWare ESXi host). One unit handles file services for students

and staff (group shares and individual client folder redirection) while the other unit receives backups

of this data. At satellite locations, recovery is a simple matter of spinning up the file server on the

backup virtual host or performing a Windows Restore.

Strategy 3

Strategy 3 Title: Staff Data Recovery

Strategy 3 Description: Staff data, regardless of location, is redirected to the production SAN

including their My Documents, Desktop, and favorites folder. Staff is instructed to always store files

that they want backup protection for in either their My Documents or Desktop folder. Additionally,

there are group shares on a dedicated file servers for all staff. The file servers housing this data are

backed up with a full backup every two weeks and daily incrementals in between using EMC

Networker software. The Technology Department will recover older versions of files (up to two

weeks) at the request of the staff member or appropriate administrator. For additional security

against loss of data by fire or server/SAN failure, a Windows Server backup is made of the data to

another storage unit housed in the Administration building. Windows Server Backup can recover

individual files and folders.

The restoration of staff data using EMC Networker is extremely fast. As a virtual machine, networker

is replicated to our Greentree Health Science Academy facility and can be recovered from there to any

location. Restoration of backups from the Administration building can be done by mounting the

backup image (vhdx file) or by using Microsoft Recovery.

Staff data is moved into an archive directory upon a staff member leaving WCCC. The archive

directory is not purged unless the Technology Department is directed to do so by Human Resources or

a 10-year timer has expired.

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All WCCC staff members have Google Apps for Education accounts with unlimited storage and the

good faith of Google to keep data intact. Staff are encouraged to use their Google Drive as a

secondary or backup storage location.

Strategy 4

Strategy 4 Title: Service Unit Recovery


The production VMWare environment is replicated SAN to SAN via remote snapshot to the Greentree

Health Science Academy facility. The 10 miles that separates the two facilities provides an adequate

natural disaster break. All production Virtual Machines are replicated via remote Snapshot from the

primary SAN to the backup SAN. To recover the data on the Remote SAN, you can export the

replication snapshot into a new standard snapshot. You must ensure that the snap pool has enough

free space to handle both snapshots. Once the standard snapshot has been created, the volume can

be presented and the VMs retrieved. If the primary SAN goes down, the entire replication volume can

be provisioned as the primary volume. Once completed, the replication SAN takes the place of the

primary SAN at the remote location. This recovery process has been tested and found to be very

effective by WCCC.

Another layer of protection for Servers is a bare metal disaster recovery backup using EMC

Networker. While not all servers are backed up with Networker, it does provide the fastest recovery

method.

Servers in satellite locations are backed up with Windows server backup.

Strategy 5

Strategy 5 Title: Fire-Stop Protection


Bandwidth is always an issue with backup/restore operations. Another challenge is having a secure,

remote IDF with adequate cooling to house necessary equipment needed to adequately perform

backup/restore operations. WCCC has three buildings on the main campus with the data center in

the main building. The TEC building on the main campus does not have a proper IDF for

backup/restore equipment. The Administration building on the main campus has a good IDF, but the

room needs additional cooling to effectively support backup/restore operations.

At remote locations, the best bandwidth is to a private vlan at the Kings Mills South Campus at 1 gbps.

However, that location does not provide an adequate IDF and cooling for a storage unit. Leased

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space at the Warren County Airport does not provide a secure IDF. The only remaining facility with an

adequate IDF and cooling is the Greentree facility. This facility is ideal for replicating our production

VMware environment as the servers in this environment do not undergo drastic changes. However,

the bandwidth at 50 mbps is not conducive to replicate volatile data like staff data shares. Three

volumes are replicated to Greentree with the typical replication time being 20 minutes. Initial

replication (first time on a new 1.8 TB volume) takes nearly a week. Improving the bandwidth to

Greentree is critical during the lifetime of this plan.

When examining the options for a backup/recovery remote location, volatile data is best suited to be

backed up to the Administration Building. Adding adequate cooling to the room would make this

ideal. The parking lot separation between the main building and the Administration building does

provide an adequate firestop should the main campus data center suffer a fire disaster. WCCC may

get lucky if a strong natural disaster, such as a tornado, were to occur.

WCCC has a standalone exchange server, standalone email archiving server, Standalone MacIntosh

server, staff data shares, and staff redirected data that are considered critical. Each of these is

backed up to a 12 TB storage unit housed in the Administration building. The remainder of data in

the primary data center is not considered critical and includes:

● Student redirected data - students should back up to Google Drive

● Archive Data - former staff, students, old servers, etc

● Non-production environment data - image development and bench test environment

● Imaging data - Operating system images and volumes which are typically housed at every

location

If bandwidth to the Greentree facility can be upgraded to allow replication of this data to that facility,

it would make the entire WCCC environment recoverable from a single remote location.

Both the primary data center and the Greentree data center have halon fire extinguishers for

electrical fires should they be needed.


First a software decision must be made to facilitate the securing of sensitive data. Then staff must be

trained via workshop on how to use the software and on new policies and procedures for handling

sensitive data.

Technology Department Staff must be cross-trained in managing backup and restoration methods.

Technology Department staff must go through annual practice simulations in which non-production

data and servers are backed up, replicated, and restored.



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● Completion of professional development activities centered on securing sensitive data and on

policies and procedures for handling sensitive data

● Completion of Technology Department staff cross-training and simulation exercises


All sensitive data handled by staff at WCCC will be encrypted.

All staff will follow security policies and procedures when handling sensitive data.

100% of Technology Department staff will be proficient at backing up and recovering data and

services.


Treasurer, Superintendent, Director of Curriculum, Director of Student Services, Director of Secondary

Education, Director of Adult Education, Director of the Preschool, Technology Director, Technology

Department Staff, Administrative Support Staff, Student Services Staff



Evaluation Process


● Completion of identification of sensitive data

● Training on the use of encryption software for sensitive data

● Completion of a policy and procedures manual for handling sensitive data

● Completion of simulated activities where Technology Department staff backup and restore

data and services


The administration team will be able to monitor the Administrative Support staff through the

evaluation process to determine if proper procedures for encrypting and securing sensitive data are

being followed. The implementation of new policy and establishment of procedures and a training

program will be the beginning of evaluation for this strategy.

The Technology Director will use the evaluation process with department staff to ensure their

proficiency using backup and restore protocols and procedures. Cross-training will occur.

Recommendations will be made for professional development and setting goals as needed.

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● WCCC will have done due diligence to ensure the security and protection against theft of

sensitive data

● Staff and Student Data are recoverable

● The WCCC datacenter is recoverable from the Greentree facility along with all critical data

● WCCC will be able to recover technology operations in as quick a manner as bandwidth

permits


Treasurer, Superintendent, Director of Curriculum, Director of Student Services, Director of Secondary

Education, Director of Adult Education, Director of the Preschool, Technology Director, Technology

Department Staff, Administrative Support Staff, Student Services Staff

Estimated Budget

2016: $0

2017: $0

2018: $0

Budget Notes

This is not a budgetary item unless a decision is made to upgrade bandwidth to a remote facility or

renovate a remote facility for backup/restore operations. All software mentioned for encryption is

open source or free to use.

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Appendix A - Budget Summary by Account Code By Year

2015-16

Account Description Amount Year Notes

414

All Staff Professional

Development $12,500.00 16

423 Repair and Maintenance $62,430.00 16

423-2240 Chromebook Repair $25,000.00 16

432 Professional Development $4,000.00 16

490 Purchased Services $56,940.00 16

510 Supplies $28,400.00 16

516 Software $146,080.00 16

$12,500 recouped from PLATO

Partnership, includes annual

program account encumbrances

520 Textbooks $20,000.00 16 Curriculum Account

644 Equipment $363,079.35 16

Includes telephone and network

projects

1310-644-33

33 Chromebook 1:1 $48,000.00 16

$96,000 up front, $48,000 recouped

from fees

2016-17


414







510 Supplies $28,400.00 17

516 Software $116,530.00 17





644 Equipment $268,303.21 17

Will be less if WCCC remains on

hosted wireless

1310-644-33

33 Chromebook 1:1 $48,000.00 17


from fees

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2017-18


414







510 Supplies $28,400.00 18

516 Software $112,380.00 18





644 Equipment $268,303.21 18

Will be less if WCCC remains on

hosted wireless

1310-644-33

33 Chromebook 1:1 $48,000.00 18


from fees

Note: The 644 Line item is inflated far beyond historical spending. This is due to the numbers placed

in the Technology Plan for goals on hardware standards dealing with the life cycle of equipment. We

set goals for lifecycle based on industry standards, however, in efforts to cut cost while providing

quality hardware, we have historically purchased off-lease equipment and upgraded existing

equipment to extend the lifecycle far beyond the values set in the Technology Plan goals.

Note: This summary includes projected dollar amounts for standard annual line items that are not

included in Technology Plan Goals. A detailed budget projection ledger is available in the Technology

Department offices.

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Appendix B Ohio K12 Network Subsidy Each year the Ohio Department of Education releases the Ohio K12 Network grant subsidy. Each district is eligible to submit for this subsidy whose purpose is to offset the cost of interconnecting buildings. The subsidy is scaled by the number of building IRNs in the district. WCCC is a single building IRN that houses three buildings on the main campus and leased space at the Warren County Airport, Kings Mills South Campus, and the Greentree Health Science Academy. WCCC also leases space at the Warren County Humane Society and is granted space at the Otterbein Retirement Community in Lebanon, both of which are on disparate networks. The Adult Basic Literacy Education is housed in a Warren County Government building in downtown Lebanon and is on a disparate network. Historically, the Ohio K12 subsidy application is done in two parts:

● An online survey regarding connectivity and bandwidth ● A WAN diagram submitted online that is approved by the ITC (SWOCA)

Below is the WAN diagram submitted for the 201415 Ohio K12 subsidy:

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Appendix C - Network Diagrams

Telephony Diagram

Note: It is desired to increase the bandwidth to the Warren County Airport and to the Greentree

Health Science Academy.

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Existing LAN Diagram, 2014

1 Gbps Core, 1 Gbps to each IDF distribution switch stack, no more than 96 concurrent drops per

uplink.

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Future LAN Diagram Based on Technology Plan Goals, Proposed by TSI, Inc

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