Derby Public Schools' technology director told the school board on Oct. 27 that a recent Skyward student-information-system upgrade caused significant payroll data errors that required lengthy manual fixes, and outlined several ongoing technology initiatives, including a pilot of GoGuardian parental controls and a cybersecurity campaign.

Dennis Elvidge, director of technology, said the final import during the Skyward upgrade “did not go how we thought it would go,” producing scrambled data that left some staff unpaid or mispaid. He told the board district payroll, HR and curriculum staff worked extended hours—“5 a.m. to midnight daily, 6 and 7 days a week”—to correct errors in coordination with Skyward support.

Elvidge said the district is conducting a cybersecurity-awareness campaign for staff (October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month), including classroom and staff-facing communications and a phishing-test program. The district is also piloting enhancements to GoGuardian that will allow teachers to apply temporary, classroom-level filtering and to permit parents to view and control Chromebook activity off the district network via a parent portal. Elvidge said the GoGuardian features are already available and will not cost the district additional funds; at least 20 parents and five schools were in an initial pilot with no reported negative feedback.

On federal E-rate funding, the director said the district had been placed into a full 10-year program integrity assurance (PIA) review but reported a recent funding letter for Category 1 (internet connectivity). Category 2 (network equipment) remained pending at the time of his report.

Elvidge emphasized the staff effort to repair the Skyward import and thanked employees across payroll, HR and curriculum for their patience. He also noted that the GoGuardian parental-controls pilot responds to an earlier blue-ribbon committee suggestion about parental visibility.

The board did not take separate action on the technology items at the Oct. 27 meeting; the report was informational and opened for questions from board members.