District tech, cybersecurity and transportation updates: fleet numbers, Verkada move and a new website
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Summary
At the April 7 work session the district received semiannual transportation and technology reports: fleet counts and daily mileage, plans to standardize security and visitor management on Verkada, cybersecurity and backup upgrades, and an upcoming new website and mass‑communication system.
District technology and transportation leaders briefed the Cornwall‑Lebanon School District board on April 7 about fleet operations, cybersecurity upgrades and several planned technology rollouts.
Transportation summary: district staff said Brightbill Transportation operates the district’s current contracted fleet. On a typical day the district’s vehicles make just over 3,800 stops and cover about 6,200 miles; staff estimated total annual mileage above 1.1 million miles. The active on‑road fleet presented at the meeting included 35 school buses, six spares, eight microbuses and 21 vans. Staff said the vendor will add 22 new 78‑passenger buses into the fleet for the 2025–26 year, slightly increasing capacity and replacing older vehicles.
Technology and cybersecurity: district Chief Technology Officer Dr. Murray (technology report presenter) described completed and planned work including migration to an immutable, air‑gap off‑site backup for servers and Microsoft 365 data; completed security camera monitoring updates; additional elementary school camera installations (cabling completed, cameras pending delivery); and improvements to the district’s cybersecurity posture and related policies. "Immutable basically means it can't be written to. So it can't be interrupted or encrypted or anything like that," Murray said when describing the new backup approach.
Murray and other staff described plans to consolidate several security and safety systems under a single vendor portal, including cameras, environmental sensors, guest/visitor management and door access. The district said it is moving toward Verkada for cameras, environmental sensors and visitor management so the systems can be managed in a unified interface. Staff said the unified approach would let administrators locate a registered visitor quickly and view camera footage within the same management interface.
Staff also announced a vendor change for the district’s public website, mobile app and mass communication system: the district has selected a new mass‑communication provider bundled with a website and mobile app; staff said the new package reduced costs compared with the previous vendor and will be implemented in June pending final configuration and training.
Device rollouts and classroom support: staff said they are preparing device allocations for full‑day kindergarten and for grade‑level device rollouts next year — sixth and ninth graders will receive new laptops for the 2025–26 school year — and that Falcon World (the district’s in‑house content and professional‑learning management system) will be updated as part of website migration planning.
What the board heard and next steps: staff said remaining tasks include completing camera installations, finishing the backup migration, training administrators on the new mass‑communication tools and reconfiguring district networking and fiber when the Falcon Connector is turned over to the district during the construction phasing. The technology office said they will coordinate equipment moves and fiber re‑routing as renovation phases proceed so classroom and building systems are functional when spaces come back into use.
Ending
Staff requested board action next week on a driver approval (one CDL trainee) and said most technology changes will be implemented over the summer with training before the 2025–26 school year begins.
