Facilities, IT and Finance directors give annual reports; board asks follow-up questions

Jack McCaskill, Jeremy Cox and Sheila Wood — the district directors for facilities, information technology and finance — presented annual departmental updates during the West Valley School District study session on April 8.

The presentations summarized recent capital work, ongoing operations and planned projects that affect school facilities, classroom technology and district financial systems.

Facilities Director Jack McCaskill said crews completed the artificial turf installation, track replacement and ADA retrofitting of the grandstands at Clayson Field in time for the school year, and he expects a new press box later this summer. The department replaced roofs at Cottonwood, Mountain View and White Hollow elementaries and completed warranty LED replacements in corridors at Apple Valley and Summit View. McCaskill told the board the department has processed 676 facility-use requests so far this school year, completed 2,531 reactive work orders and closed about 1,377 preventive-maintenance orders.

McCaskill described turf upkeep needs — regular grooming with a dedicated machine, periodic watering to redistribute infill pellets, and patch repairs of seams — and said the district will contract monitoring support for the next three years. He also said some roof warranty claims remain under review.

Information technology Director Jeremy Cox described recent deployments and security work. The district rolled out ClassLink and a multi-factor authentication workflow for secondary students; replaced Remind with ParentSquare for school–family communications; and expanded content filtering and a parent-facing monitoring tool (Custodio) that parents can opt into. Cox said IT supports more than 10,000 devices (including Chromebooks and staff machines), manages hundreds of switches and access points, and is replacing about 60 network switches with E‑Rate funding pending. He warned the district’s phone system, installed circa 2005, needs replacement and the project will be budget-constrained.

Cox emphasized cybersecurity as the department’s top priority. He described layered defenses (external/internal firewalls, segmentation, endpoint protection via CrowdStrike), phishing training for staff and students using a simulated-phishing product, and dashboards and logs used to track incidents and trends.

Director of Finance Sheila Wood described staffing changes and software upgrades. The finance office implemented Okta-based multifactor authentication for the Tyler financial/HR/payroll system and is piloting InTouch Pay (the cloud replacement for the district’s former InTouch cash-receiving system). Wood said she is beginning work on the 2025–26 budget, monitoring proposed state and federal funding changes and implementing updated OSPI accounting requirements, including closer attention to unassigned fund balance.

Board members asked about the LED failures (McCaskill said the vendor acknowledged a bad batch and replaced the strips under warranty with no classroom disruption) and turf maintenance (McCaskill said grooming and occasional watering are required and the district will contract monitoring support). Several members praised custodial and grounds work and asked IT to support parent outreach for the new monitoring/parental-control products; Cox said he will coordinate parent education with building principals and communications staff over the coming school year.

The study-session presentations concluded with thanks from the superintendent and brief board discussion about next steps for facilities and technology oversight.