Technology director lays out five-year capital plan, E-rate projects and cybersecurity priorities

Dan Maguire, the district’s technology director, presented the technology department’s five-year capital plan, sustainability targets and cybersecurity priorities to the board’s committee on March 3, saying the district expects to fund staff and student device refreshes from the operating budget beginning in 2025–26 and is pursuing E-rate support for core infrastructure projects.

Maguire said the district will transition to a sustainable model that funds annual device refreshes from the operating budget rather than capital reserves: “Starting in 2526, all student and teacher devices will be fully funded out of our general operating budget,” he said. He outlined recurring refresh cycles—staff laptop refreshes on a four‑year cycle (about 100 Dell Latitude units, $62,000 annually) and an annual refresh of roughly 1,000 Chromebooks for first, fifth and ninth graders (about $366,000 per year). Maguire said the board-supported plan will keep device replacement on a predictable schedule and reduce reliance on large occasional capital purchases.

Infrastructure and E-rate projects Maguire told the committee the district is rethinking its VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure because licensing costs have risen sharply. He described a planned move to a more traditional architecture to control recurring licensing costs and said that while the immediate procurement looks larger, the five-year approach reduces long-term expense relative to the previous refresh model.

He also flagged a firewall refresh and other network infrastructure projects that will take advantage of E-rate discounts—Maguire included an E-rate project list in the confidential packet and said the district is seeking roughly $1.7 million of E-rate-supported work across wired and wireless upgrades, UPS battery replacements and a firewall refresh. He praised Mark Fisher in the technology department for engineering and managing E-rate projects.

Specialty labs, classroom design and new school preparation Maguire described planned refreshes for STEM and fine‑arts labs with more flexible configurations—laptops and shared workstations rather than fixed, dedicated workstations—and said plans for the new Greenwood and New Garden buildings will include standardized, future‑proof wiring and projector/connectivity setups. He said project teams will build a model classroom so teachers can train on the configuration before moving into new spaces.

Operational supports, help desk and cybersecurity Maguire described ongoing improvements to support workflows, including a planned migration to Incident IQ for work orders, inventory and knowledge-base functionality. He said building librarians remain a primary on-site support channel and that the district maintains spare Chromebooks for assessment days. He identified two chief operational risks: cybersecurity and department capacity/retention—“cybersecurity… and capacity,” he said, “with all of this going on, the capacity to be able to maintain this high level of support” is a concern.

AI, procurement and data privacy Maguire said vendors’ evolving generative-AI features are being evaluated through privacy and security questionnaires; the district requires vendor responses on data governance before piloting tools that include AI components. He described an implementation requirement that teachers obtain parental permission before using generative AI with students in classroom pilots.

Why it matters: the plan shifts recurring device costs into the operating budget to regularize refreshes and signals growing emphasis on cybersecurity, E-rate-funded infrastructure, and pedagogy‑driven device choices in specialized labs. The committee asked questions about E-rate continuity, device durability and capacity to manage new building rollouts.

Next steps Maguire said the department will continue refining the five‑year plan, submit required E-rate filings for the next funding cycle and present detailed capital recommendations aligned with the April budget timeline. Committee members thanked the technology team and stressed the importance of staff retention and cybersecurity investments.