To: Michael Green
From: Steve Rippl
Date: March 17, 2023
RE: Tech Department Report
Our transition to the new phone system seems to be going well. In fact, it’s happening with so little disruption that it looks as though we’re going to be able to just gradually switch everyone over little by little, even as school is in, rather than having to wait until there are breaks in school.
This is particularly helpful as the time we have when school is out will likely be occupied with the middle school’s PA and bells system. The old Simplex system is failing, just this year, we had an amp die, and now we think we have a faulty station card. We’ve been managing to patch things with other equipment and/or find other workarounds, so the system is still doing what it needs to, but I feel like it is hanging on by a thread! Over Spring Break, we plan to try and map out the wiring to the speakers around the building. Then over the summer, we will tear out the Simplex and replace it with new amps and digital zone controllers to drive announcements and bells. We’ll still be relying on the old cabling and speakers, but that can be repaired piecemeal as needed. A whole new IP-based system with new speaker-clocks will cost over $200K, and so that needs to wait for capital funds to be available one day.
We’ve repaired faulty outdoor security cameras at the high school, and over Spring break, we hope to replace those that have failed at the middle school. They are usually at the tops of poles or high up on buildings, so it takes some planning and equipment to get to them!
Our building and rollout of new staff computers have been on hold. One of our team has been out on extended medical leave, and that has left us too short-handed to be able to move that project forward, as well as some replacement Chromebooks that are waiting to be set up and put in place. Hopefully, we’ll be able to pick those pieces up again shortly.