Gainesville City School board members learned more about the technology that connects their students, parents, faculty and staff and whether or not the information shared there was considered safe.
A Layer Three audit determined that the school system was fairly well protected against incidents, which included the auditors attempting to hack in to the system.
"They were not able to, so we're in good shape. We just have some old equipment that needs to be replaced," said Keith Palmer, Director of Technology. "We really only found that we had one protocol, Telnet, that hadn't been used in years. It's normally open on a network but has no reason to be, so we closed it,"
Later in the meeting, Palmer asked for the board to approve a bid for School Messenger to redesign and host the school system's website. The school system currently uses School Messenger for their messaging and notifications system. The total cost to build the site with School Messenger was $15,450, the lowest cost to build; the annual hosting cost is $12,200; the overall cost over five years is $64,250, the lowest five year cost.
"That was a big part of it, a foot in the RFP (request for proposal) that it has to work with our school notification system, so we've guaranteed that it will in this case," said Palmer.
And, they will maintain the overall aesthetic of the school system's website. "Each department, each school can have their own part of it, but not change the overall look. That's important - the same colors, the same fonts, that kind of thing, but get to to change the content that's in there."
Palmer is in his 25th year as Director of Technology and said each school board he has worked with has been very supportive of their efforts in advanced technology.
Also of note, the school board approved a request for new playground equipment at Enota Elementary. About five to eight pieces of equipment from the old school, which was torn down last year to build a larger school, were salvaged and will be incorporated into the design as well. Board members were curious about the status of the previously used equipment, as it was purchased new by the Parent Teacher Association. Direction of Operations Adrian Niles told the board he would have additional information about which pieces survived the removal process at a later date.
And, Beverly Turner Hamin was presented with the Faculty on Fire award, recognizing her 42 years of educational work, most recently at New Holland Knowledge Academy as an academic coach.
Tuesday
April 1st, 2025
5:47AM
