Bossier Schools recap multi‑year E‑Rate upgrades: new cabling, enterprise Wi‑Fi and athletic‑field fiber

Stuart Thompson briefed the Bossier Parish School Board committee on a multi‑year effort using E‑Rate funds and local matching dollars to modernize internal network infrastructure, extend fiber to athletic facilities and upgrade wireless and network security. Thompson said the district receives an 80 percent E‑Rate discount, leaving the board responsible for 20 percent of eligible costs, and described three major Category 2 projects completed over roughly five years: recabling classrooms, upgrading wireless to an enterprise system, and running fiber to athletic facilities. “We have a access point mounted in every single classroom,” Thompson said. The update included quantitative details Thompson provided: about 9,400 individual cable runs of Category 6/6a cable (an average run of about 141 feet), nearly 245 miles of total cable run, and support for “about 50,000 wireless devices” on the network. Thompson said Category 1 (Internet/WAN) pre‑discount costs for the coming year are about $500,000. He also said the district has a multi‑year Category 2 budget going forward that was discussed as a five‑year plan. Thompson described operational tradeoffs and constraints: much of the recabling work had to occur after hours and overnight; the district contracted a single vendor, DCS of Magnolia, Arkansas, to perform the overnight installations; and several dozen noninstructional sites were recabled in‑house. He said the wireless network was transitioned from consumer‑grade equipment to an enterprise system to allow centralized management, VLAN segmentation and stronger security. Board members asked about cybersecurity and service levels. Board member Bertrand asked whether future upgrades will be needed to maintain cybersecurity insurance ratings. Thompson answered that keeping pace with security requirements is an ongoing cycle: “Multifactor is 1 of the things which, everybody hates, but is is a necessity this time,” and said the district budgets to replace switches and firewalls on a lifecycle basis and coordinates funding with the budget office. In response to a question about ticket resolution, Thompson said support is tracked with service level agreements and that most tickets are resolved within 24–48 hours outside of August demand spikes. Thompson said the district still has additional work planned under the next five‑year Category 2 budget, including replacing more than 500 network switches approaching end of life and addressing a few newer schools, and he noted the district plans to move its physical data center to a new site. Why it matters: the recap explained how federal E‑Rate discounts and local matching funds were used to address classroom connectivity and security gaps that had accumulated since original cabling in the 1990s, and it identified remaining lifecycle and capital needs the board will consider. The briefing did not include a board action; Thompson asked if there were questions and the committee did not take a formal vote on the update.