Tech director reports new firewall, Wi-Fi redesign and districtwide student-data privacy review

Technology director Jackie Bonello briefed the committee on network and data-privacy work during the June 15 meeting.

Bonello said the district replaced an aging firewall (grant-supported) and restructured the wireless network so staff, students and guests operate on separate SSIDs. She described a district effort to catalog and review more than 120 digital platforms, flagging vendors that will not sign a data-privacy agreement and creating a searchable repository that indicates whether a platform is approved and the terms of any Data Privacy Agreement (DPA).

On communications, the district has launched ParentSquare to centralize school- and district-level messages, and administrators have used analytics features for open-rate troubleshooting. Bonello said the technology team will work with building leaders and coaches to ensure rosters and groups are configured in ParentSquare and to provide training this fall.

Infrastructure and devices: Jenkins school will receive a central switch closet and rewiring over summer (phase one), later followed by switch replacement. The district ordered ~600 Chromebooks to refresh student devices and budgeted for interactive panels and projector replacements at schools. Bonello noted rising device costs and flagged the need for longer-range technology budgeting and possible equity staffing to support elementary and secondary integration.

Accessibility and compliance: the district has until 2028 to meet new ADA website and digital-resource accessibility rules; ParentSquare and the new site reduce that risk but additional work will continue.

Bonello asked committee members to expect an ongoing cyber incident-response plan development and proposed that the district convene a small working group to formalize response protocols.

What the public should know: the district is taking steps to make technology safer and more transparent: improved perimeter defenses, a vetted list of classroom platforms tied to DPAs, centralized communications and scheduled summer infrastructure work to fix Jenkins and update classroom hardware.