District reviews technology plan and Synergy rollout; cybersecurity membership now requires district cost share
Summary
Technology director Marie Bachman briefed the board on year‑2 Synergy implementation, StudentVUE mobile and kiosk rollout, analytics and MTSS capabilities, and rising cybersecurity costs as federal funding for MS‑ISAC-supported tools decreases and districts assume cost shares.
Marie Bachman, the district’s technology director, reviewed the annual technology plan and a second-year update on the district’s new student information system, Synergy. She described new modules that went live, a StudentVUE mobile app and a kiosk view for tardy scanning, and analytics and MTSS tools that staff use to identify and monitor students at risk.
Bachman said the district has continued to add modules and refine state reporting after year‑one implementation issues. "As of October 2025, we have brought up 2 other modules as well," she said, describing StudentVUE mobile and a kiosk view that prints a pass when a late student scans a QR code or barcode. She told the board that kindergarten through second‑grade devices are being kept in school and that the district is considering expansion of in‑school device programs where appropriate.
On cybersecurity, Bachman said the district uses the Center for Internet Security and the Multi‑State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS‑ISAC) and that some previously federally funded tools will now require districts to cover portions of the cost. "We are going to be responsible for about 30% of that cost," she said, describing a new cost-share for some detection tools previously supported by state and federal grants. Bachman also reported that MS‑ISAC engagement helped detect probing activity on a district IP segment; there was "no compromise," she said, but the incident illustrated the importance of layered defenses and an incident response plan.
She provided recurring-cost and lifecycle information: the district ran both old and new student information systems during the transition, increasing maintenance overlap costs, and has seen vendor price increases in some contracts. Service desk metrics showed roughly 19,076 tickets in the past year with a median first response of 1.9 days and resolution averaging 9.8 days.
Board members asked about parent‑communication options, e‑rate reimbursement sensitivity to SNAP eligibility changes, timeline and contingency planning for Synergy reporting, and the privacy and legal guardrails for student data. Bachman said the district uses multi‑layer privacy protections and has tabletop exercises and an incident response approach, and she described plans to convene a Pennsylvania Synergy user group to share implementation lessons with other districts.
No policy votes were taken; Bachman said several projects (device replacements, a multipurpose room project at Farmersville, and server replacements) are planned within the next one to three years and that staff would return with procurement details as needed.
