CFISD weighs multi-year data dashboard and cybersecurity investment; trustees press for vetting and security details
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Summary
Trustees questioned a proposed multi-year data dashboard and related cybersecurity investment, asking about cost changes from an earlier $1,000,000 estimate, vetting, security, and long-term ownership. Administration said the product would be internally owned to avoid vendor lock-in and would consolidate multiple systems.
Cypress-Fairbanks ISD administrators presented a recommended multi-year data dashboard and answered trustees' questions about cost, vetting, consolidation of existing systems and cybersecurity.
Trustees noted the district's earlier budget estimate for a data dashboard of $1,000,000 and asked why the current quote differed. Administration explained the proposal is structured as a multi-year, multi-component solution and that the previously shared figure was an annual estimate; the recommended vendor would allow CFISD to own the back-end infrastructure to reduce vendor lock-in and long-term costs.
District staff described the solution as a centralized "data lake house" that would pull data across departments — attendance, testing, discipline, transportation and nutrition services — to provide dashboards that aim to reduce manual reporting and save staff hours on state reports. Administrators said they vetted five vendors, reviewed references from other districts, ranked proposals on multiple categories and considered sustainability and cybersecurity as part of the selection.
Trustees raised security concerns about consolidating data in a single platform; administrators said the district would apply existing cybersecurity investments and monitoring partners (Microsoft, AWS) to protect the system and emphasized that dashboards available to the public would not contain personally identifiable information. The board requested additional detail on cost breakdowns, consolidation targets, and expected savings over time.
The discussion occurred as part of the consent and non-consent reviews; the district indicated future materials will clarify the multi-year costs and which existing tools would be retired.