Academic Computing and Information Technology

Goal: To replace the Vernon school district’s existing, inter-building network connectivity with the key initial components for the phased deployment of a Managed Optical Ethernet that will connect all the LEA sites.

This project provides for the deployment of the initial phase of a fiber optic network that will connect our schools and central offices together and will permit them all to take advantage of the high speed connection at Rockville High School (RHS) to the Connecticut Education Network. The proposed improvements will have a major impact on the ability of our district to distribute curriculum content, assessment data and provide a capable infrastructure for on line testing. Use of and reliance on our existing WAN has grown exponentially and continues to grow. Demand for faster connectivity has far outpaced our ability to cover the capital expenditure required for such infrastructure upgrades within a reasonable timeframe. Regular use of web based and wide area network resources has become an embedded part of the pedagogical culture of the Vernon district and this phenomenon, coupled with significant increases in the use and transmission of school administrative data and communications require improvements to our wide area network capabilities. The eventual adoption of online versions of the CAPT and CMT make the network improvements requisite.

CEN Traffic Analysis of ENRT146 at RHS

The Vocational–Agricultural center on the campus at RHS is currently connected to the high school by fiber but the other seven district sites are connected to the high school via a variety of connection types including T1 lines, fractional T1 lines and DSL lines and the central office site has no wide area connection to our schools at all. This current arrangement is far from ideal but has remained in place due to budgetary limitations. Though inefficient, at times sluggish and requiring a duplication of some existing CEN services available at the high school, the current WAN is crucial to our daily IT support operations and the delivery of both curriculum components and assessment data. The Vernon school district is connected to the CEN only through the fiber optic link at Rockville High School and a point to point T1 line from VCMS to RHS. Most of the other sites are widely separated from the high school by distances of between two and six miles. The goal of this proposal is to begin linking all of the school district sites via fiber optic connections to maximize the investment the state has made in our CEN connection and to provide a backbone that will support online versions of the CAPT and CMT. The proposed plan for these improvements employs a phased approach in order to meet projected budgetary constraints. The first step to the creation of an all fiber WAN as proposed for this application is the connection of the high school to the central office, the middle school, Skinner Road and Center Road schools. These connections would create excellent opportunities and greatly reduce the cost of extending the linkage to the other sites in the district.

The diagrams below illustrate the proposed Vernon School District GIGe MOE.

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