A new E-rate proposal was approved by the Snowflake School District Governing Board Feb. 12.
“Based on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) created the E-rate program to provide schools and libraries affordable access to advanced telecommunications services,” according to a Feb. 9 memo to the governing board from District IT Director C.C. LaGrange.
At last week’s meeting, she explained to the board that the major changes to the E-rate this year are that they took money from category 1, which provides funding for broadband and Wan connectivity, and will phase it down at the rate of 20 percent each year until it is gone, and added money to category 2, which provides bandwidth within schools, including wireless. This means that the district will be required to pay 20 percent this year.
LaGrange said that funding will be disbursed on a three-year basis and a site basis that is based on the student count at $150 per student, which means the three years of funding could be used in the first year.
The district posted a request for quotes to install and replace the aging wireless system district-wide, consolidate several classrooms into one aggregation switch, upgrade the connectivity between the datacenter and each site to 10GB, and cell phone services.
E-rate proposals were received and evaluated for their services. Based on those evaluations, LaGrange recommended that the governing board approve Verizon for cellular phone service, and Desert Communications, Inc., which was the only vendor that submitted a complete bid, for the wireless and switch upgrades.
The board unanimously approved the E-rate proposal.
