Board approves new phone system; technology director outlines cloud servers, internet and Skyward upgrade plan

The school board approved a five‑year, cloud‑hosted Cisco phone system and heard a technology briefing that included a recent migration of district servers to a K‑12 ITC cloud, an internet speed upgrade and a multi‑year plan to upgrade the district’s Skyward student information system.

Forrest, staff member, told the board that the district moved its servers to K‑12 ITC’s hosted infrastructure several months ago to gain redundancy and faster recovery. “It actually reduced costs,” he said, and the hosted set‑up provides geographic redundancy across Kansas City, Colorado and the East Coast.

Forrest said the district is planning an upgrade to Skyward’s next platform (Skyward Cumulative) targeted for summer 2026 and that the district has a committee working on data cleanup and training. He also said the district will increase its internet connection at the middle school from 1 Gbps to 5 Gbps this summer and add a 1 Gbps backup path from a separate route to improve resiliency; he noted roughly 70% of the internet cost is covered by E‑Rate funding.

On telephony, Forrest recommended Cisco after evaluating multiple bids and testing phones. The board approved the recommended vendor and a roughly $180,000 five‑year contract that included management tools, eFax migration and licensing; Forrest said the recommended bid came in under the $200,000 budgeted amount.

Trustees asked about outage risk. Forrest said the cloud phone system depends on internet connectivity and noted the planned redundant internet feed and that staff are exploring cellular backup options. The board approved the phone system motion by voice vote.

The technology report also covered summer plans to rewire a CTE computer lab, image and service computer labs and manage Chromebook inventories and new‑teacher device training in June to issue devices earlier to new hires.