OTHS technology report: Chromebooks, cybersecurity and campus upgrades highlighted

The district’s technology director briefed the board on staff and student device distributions, cybersecurity steps, recent milestones and planned network/camera work.

Highlights presented: 500 new Chromebooks were checked out to incoming freshmen; three new Chromebook carts and a 3D lab monitor purchase (27-inch monitors) were funded via CTE funds (roughly $40,000); 12 new teacher Surface devices and 12 view boards were provided by the district endowment fund (approximately $58,000). The technology team said Canvas is fully deployed districtwide, replacing Blackboard.

On cybersecurity the technology team described expanded multifactor authentication (MFA) for campus facility locks and user logins and said the district’s cybersecurity partner (named in the presentation) provides 24/7 monitoring and incident detection. The team said they have reduced hotspot checkouts from COVID-era highs and renegotiated contracts to allow expansion if needed.

Infrastructure priorities listed for the coming year included security cameras and Wi‑Fi for the Melborne football/softball concession stand areas, replacement of aging network cabling at the Smiley campus, redundancy solutions and faculty workstation refreshes to support newer view-board hardware. The technology director also noted pilot work on transition/college-device bundles for graduating students and the continued rollout of a new frontline absence/time-sheet system.

No formal board action was taken on the technology report; the presentation was informational.