The universal service Schools and Libraries Program, commonly known as “E-rate,” provides discounts of up to 90 percent to help eligible schools and libraries in the United States obtain affordable telecommunications and internet access. The program is intended to ensure that schools and libraries have access to affordable telecommunications and information services.

Eligible participants include public and most non-profit K-12 schools as well as all public and many private libraries. Program participants must carry out a competitive bidding process to select the most cost-effective companies to provide the goods and/or services requested.

Program participants may request funding in five categories of service: Telecommunications, Telecommunications Services, Internet Access, Internal Connections, and Basic Maintenance of Internal Connections. Discounts for support depend on the level of poverty and the urban/rural status of the population served and range from 20 percent to 90 percent of the costs of eligible services.

Starting in FY2015, requests for Category Two funding – that is, internal connections (IC), managed internal broadband services (MIBS), and basic maintenance of internal connections (BMIC) – are limited to a budget based on the number of students in a school or the number of square feet of a library outlet. A school or library can decide if it wants to spend all of its budget in one year or if it wants to spread it out over any of the five years. Additionally, the school or library can decide if it wants to use all of its Category Two funding on one of the three service types, or for a combination of all three. For example, you could request the entire Category Two five-year budget in FY2015 for just internal connections products, or you could divide up your request over multiple years and request support for IC, MIBS, and BMIC products and services.

The school board currently has 1709 wireless access unit deployed district wide. If approved the district will be able to deploy 2046 additional access points to allow district wide access to wireless for students and employees.

Estimated Cost is $800,000 without approval of E-Rate Category 2 (wireless)

Estimated Cost with E-rate approval is $320,000.

(Numbers are estimated based on current cost)

This project is a continuation of E-Rate Category 2 from 2016-2017 school year.  This covered 60% of the network infrastructure cost for switching allowing us to move from 100mb switching to 1000MB switching.  This switching increased stability and speed of the technological infrastructure of Clay County.

E-Rate contract will allow installation of wireless access points in every classroom throughout the District solidifying infrastructure to allow expansion of digital resources district-wide.

Equal wireless access in all classrooms district-wide to support digital based curriculum.

We recommend that the Board approve the item.