Round Lake board approves three CDW cybersecurity contracts under FCC E‑rate pilot
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Summary
The board approved three CDW contracts to implement Palo Alto Panorama, Abnormal email security and Cortex XDR under the FCC cybersecurity pilot, with 90% reimbursement; district staff said the funding reduces local cost but acknowledged contingent federal funding risk.
At the July 21 meeting the Round Lake Area Board of Education approved three district agreements with CDW to implement cybersecurity tools paid largely through the FCC's cybersecurity pilot under the federal E‑rate program. District officials said the district was awarded $268,301 in pilot funding and that the three agreements carry 90% reimbursement. The contracts and district shares cited in board discussion were: Panorama centralized firewall management (three-year total $15,000; district share $1,500), Abnormal email security (three-year total $101,250; district share $10,125), and Palo Alto Cortex XDR endpoint detection (two-year total $129,685; district share $12,968.50). Technology staff credited the grant for enabling the district to adopt higher-impact tools with a smaller local share. Hermes Mondragon, who helped secure the award, explained the benefits of centralized firewall administration, targeted email threat detection and an endpoint detection-and-response platform for blocking sophisticated phishing and account-takeover threats. Board member Kozak asked about the risk of federal funding being later reduced or reclaimed. District technology staff responded that administration would revisit vendor agreements and use district technology budgets to cover any shortfalls if reimbursement changed: "At that time, we would revisit it with our partner, CDW, to find out what, if anything, we can do to either get under the agreement," the technology staff member said. The board approved all three contracts by roll call: Panorama (motion by Mr. Jones, second by Ms. Klingler; approved), Abnormal email security (motion by Ms. Klingler, second by Mr. Jewett; approved), and Cortex XDR (motion by Mr. Jones, second by Ms. Clamner; approved). No board member voted against the measures. Why this matters: district officials said the tools strengthen defenses against increasingly sophisticated email and endpoint threats while leveraging federal pilot funding; they also noted the district share is modest but would be covered out of the technology budget if reimbursements change.
