Rye City School District outlines two‑year Wi‑Fi upgrade, device refresh and cybersecurity steps in technology budget presentation

Dr. Sasson presented the technology portion of the Rye City School District’s proposed budget on March 10, laying out a multi‑year plan to upgrade Wi‑Fi, refresh classroom devices and strengthen cybersecurity.

"This plan will be implemented over the next 2 years," Dr. Sasson said, describing a six‑phase Wi‑Fi rollout that begins with a central‑office pilot in March and moves to the high school and middle school in July, followed by summer installations of additional access points. He said the project includes 40 additional access points in the high school building and will make the district responsible for roughly 200 new access points across secondary campuses.

Why the expansion matters: board members questioned the need for better Wi‑Fi when students are required to keep phones in lockers. Dr. Sasson said the upgrade is primarily instructional — improving connectivity for laptops and classroom devices where previous access‑point placement or building materials (for example, concrete walls) caused interference. He described site surveys and heat maps used to place access points more effectively and said the vendor’s dashboard will allow engineers to see devices and offline/online status in near real time.

Security and monitoring were central to the presentation. Dr. Sasson said the district adopted SentinelOne this year for 24‑7 endpoint monitoring and alerts and is planning a transition from RSA tokens to Cisco Duo for strengthened multi‑factor authentication for central‑office high‑end users. "This system constantly monitors our network in real time and will alert us 24/7," he said of SentinelOne.

The presentation also covered physical security: SALTO locks and a new Avigilon camera system will be installed in the new wings at Osborne and Midland, with a plan to roll the cameras out across elementary schools by September and secondary schools thereafter, running legacy systems concurrently during year two.

On classroom technology, Dr. Sasson reported that the district replaced more than 500 desktops over the summer, is completing Promethean board installations at several schools and maintains a 1:1 Chromebook program in grades 1–5. He gave device counts (about 630 Chromebooks at the middle school; roughly 220 shared laptops at secondary levels) and said roughly 230 fifth‑grade Chromebooks will be replaced next year as part of a replacement cycle. The high school digital art lab is being reconfigured with Mac laptops to meet course requirements.

Board members pressed on budget impacts. Dr. Sasson said software and license costs have increased substantially in recent years; he characterized recent annual software price inflation as closer to 12 percent and said durables replacement cycles and one‑time capital purchases drive much of the year‑to‑year change.

Dr. Murray and Dr. Sasson said the district will combine data from faculty surveys, vendor dashboards and committee input to prioritize software licenses and exposures. Dr. Sasson also noted the technology committee’s role in shaping the plan and said the district will submit the technology plan for state review in April and again in June if it clears local review.

The presentation moved to the board’s March 24 meeting agenda, when facilities and athletics budget sections will be presented; community input is expected at an open‑topic session following those presentations.