North Mason schools aim to upgrade student computers

Kirk Boxleitner | Jul 14, 20220

The North Mason School Board heard from Director of Information Technology Clint Forsythe on June 16 about this year’s technology uses and upcoming plans for technology for the district.

Forsythe said while the district has gained more computers, it’s created more challenges and complications, especially with the number of aging computers still in use.

He said the district has achieved a 1:1 ratio of computers to students across its schools, even though several of them are more than three years old, which is “kind of your base point for a (computer’s) life cycle.” The district’s infrastructure is eight years old at the high school, “and a lot older at the middle (and) elementary schools,” so they’re “due for replacement.”

Forsythe said the district has added 1,250 student computers since the start of the pandemic.

“We got a grant,” Forsythe said. “The first round of computers we bought was 500 for the middle school. We had enough at the high school, (but) we had some really old computers we used as classroom sets for the elementary. It was more of a three-students-per-computer (ratio) at the elementaries at the beginning.”

Forsythe said that in the past two years, the district has replaced those older computers and raised the elementary schools’ student-to-computer ratio to 1:1, which he noted has also increased demand for support services from the student users.

Forsythe said a lack of in-building technical support within the district led IT to engage library staff to be students’ point of contact for computer problems.Library staff receive students’ malfunctioning computers and then IT staff examine the computers and provide functional computers as replacements in the meantime.

Forsythe estimated the backlog of computers in need of repair at one point exceeded 100 at Hawkins Middle School. IT dealt with “a bad batch of hard drives” at the middle school by purchasing 600 replacement hard drives for Hawkins; 300 in March, and another 300 two weeks prior to the June 16 school board meeting.

Forsythe said 500 computers were purchased through the Federal Communication Commission’s Emergency Connectivity Fund, while the district applied to the ECF for another 850 computers, which have yet to be approved for funding.

“We did get a grant to put Wi-Fi on 30 buses,” Forsythe said, “so if students are going home (on the bus), they’ll have extra time to use the internet until they get home. Student-athletes on the way to Port Angeles can do their homework on their way to the game.”