Fiber Optics Illuminate Our Future

Planning and partnerships gave us a $739,000 fiber-optic network

By Jerry W. Hill and Max F. Judd

Jerry W. Hill is superintendent and Max F. Judd is director of technology in the Broken Arrow School District, Tulsa County, Okla.

Here's a recipe for using technology to improve the management of an entire school district and increase instructional opportunities for 14,000 students: Take an outstanding staff, a budget strained to the limit, and a hefty portion of vision, perseverance, and teamwork. Combine these ingredients with a supportive community and let simmer for a few months. The result: A district that became the first in Oklahoma and one of only a handful in the nation to have all its facilities connected in a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network.

Two years ago, technology in Oklahoma's Broken Arrow School District was in a raw condition. Computer labs and programming classes were included in the instructional program, and some inroads had been made on student mastery, but district management practices had not progressed from traditional time-intensive methods. The mainframe computer at the central office was suffering overload, which affected work flow and communication. The personnel department even calculated teacher contracts by hand.

Realizing the management system needed reforming, we devised a plan to apply technology to help us become more efficient in administrative duties while paving the way for new and exciting learning opportunities for students.

Planning for fiber

We did not have to plan alone. The community and staff worked together to shape a shared vision of how best to serve students.

A bedroom community covering 114 square miles, the Broken Arrow School District is just outside metropolitan Tulsa. The district had emerged from two decades of high enrollment growth, during which most available funds had been dedicated to building classrooms. Little was left over for technology.

To generate momentum, we organized a strategic planning team of 100 people who represented a cross section of the business, parent, and education communities. The team met several times to generate solutions to the problems. Meanwhile, the school board developed philosophical belief statements to give the team direction.

Four intensive meetings later, the strategic planning team came to a logical conclusion: The district needed to provide high-quality service at the most efficient cost and to dedicate a larger portion of the total budget to support students, teachers, and instructional activities. Naturally, it was up to the superintendent's office and the school board to make all this happen.

The first order of business: Computerize the administrative staff, especially in departments such as personnel, where processes were labor-intensive and routine tasks required overtime dollars to complete. In addition, secondary school counselors and administrators badly needed a way to manage student data and scheduling and respond to parent inquiries quickly and efficiently.

Using scarce dollars from the general fund and the building fund to buy computer hardware and software, the district started seeing immediate results--and savings. Instead of filling positions as staff members resigned, for example, we were able to evaluate, trim, and combine positions for maximum effectiveness. Another way we produced quick savings was dismantling a word-processing staff; departments and directors were now equipped to spell-check and correct their documents themselves.

Tracking the success of the new computerized system, the central office staff continued to meet with other staff members to refine our approach. Administrators found the new system easy to use, which led to a quick transition from the old way of doing things. It also whetted everyone's appetite for more. Having instant access to districtwide information became the No. 1 wish-list item.

Clearly, though, we would have to change the way we taught students and managed schools. One of the belief statements the board had written put it well: ". . . for a school district to take full advantage of stimulating learning opportunities that occur around the world, a stable technology infrastructure must be created that will transport immediate and unlimited amounts of data, audio, and video."

As we started looking around at the possibilities, the dream of building one seamless computer program to service the entire district kept leading toward fiber optics.

The local telephone company, GTE, already had fiber-optic lines in key portions of the city. Tapping into that existing structure was definitely possible. And fiber was the only medium that would meet district needs to provide shared access to instructional software applications rich with memory-intensive graphics, sound files, and digitized video.

Fiber also provided immunity from interference from radio and electrical frequencies, allowed connectivity over greater distances, and had the potential for adding more users over a long period. Moreover, fiber was the only carrier we felt was capable of the bandwidth needed to transmit video across the district.

A key factor: GTE already had fiber-optic lines laid--in many cases within several hundred feet of our schools. Work began in earnest to find the means for making the district's fiber-optic network a reality.

Fiber comes to school

Serious discussions about the fiber-optic network began during a Chamber of Commerce planning retreat held in fall 1992. We took this opportunity to discuss the potential of fiber optics with many people from different parts of the community. There was a spark of interest.

With that spark, discussions began with other education leaders, with experts in the field of networking, and with GTE. Months of talks ensued--months of poring over budget figures, finding possible ways to finance the network, and in the process, giving the idea more weight in our minds.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates all public utilities, became interested in a fiber-optic network because of its potential economic and educational benefits. During the fall and spring of 1993, commission officials accompanied district representatives on a visit to Glenrose, Texas, a small district with a fiber network in place. What this district had accomplished spurred our efforts along.

Quotes for a 10 Mbps fiber-optic network were developed with the assistance of an experienced consultant. Three companies submitted quotes, and the contract was awarded to the low bidder, GTE. In early December 1993, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission approved a special contract to allow the new partnership between the Broken Arrow School District and GTE. The contract required a careful legal evaluation to ensure that the district complied with the state statutes governing our ability to obligate funds to purchase fiber-optic lines.

Financing the network

The cost of installing the fiber-optic lines from curb to school buildings will be paid over five years through a lease/purchase arrangement with GTE Leasing. The total cost of installing the fiber lines at all 27 schools and district buildings is $739,000, which includes the electronic equipment (such as fiber-optic transceivers, which convert electrical signals into light signals), and the intelligent Ethernet hubs required to manage such a network. The district's future obligation will then be a monthly line charge of $200 for distribution of all district management data.

Once we knew what the costs would be, we went to work on creative financing.

First, the school board approved an early retirement incentive plan that eventually would yield $660,000 to be reallocated for fiber optics. Then the Broken Arrow Education Association agreed to a change in the teachers' negotiated contract that boosted the maximum number of sick days teachers could accumulate from 60 to 120. The district "pays back" teachers for every day they accumulate over the maximum. Raising the ceiling will save the district about $100,000 for each of the next six years. This amount was also allocated for fiber optics.

These reallocated funds allowed us to purchase and implement a student management program called MacSchool for all 21 schools. MacSchool helps manage student attendance, grade reporting, and scheduling, in addition to classroom communications, student use of technology, and administrative functions. This improvement in our administrative capabilities is only the first of what we expect to be many benefits of the network.

Although two-strand fiber cables connecting each site should have been sufficient for transmitting data for the student management program, we decided to install additional fiber. Labor and installation account for the lion's share of the network's cost, and the additional capacity can be used later for video transmission--which isn't on our immediate horizon--or for applications that haven't been invented yet.

We installed 12 fibers throughout the district. Currently, only one pair of the fiber strands is in use, but the remaining 10 "dark" strands are in place and ready for use as the district's needs expand.

Now that the fiber-optic project is a reality, the district is committed to training staff and improving the overall use of the network, as well as developing creative partnerships with other institutions to expand funds available for technology.

Implementing a strategic plan for instructional technology is our next priority. Our goals for using the fiber network are clear, but the time required to accomplish each goal is not. By installing the fiber network, however, we've taken a crucial first step toward becoming more efficient and effective in management and instruction.

For more information, contact: Communications Office, Broken Arrow Public Schools, 601 South Main St., Broken Arrow, Okla. 74012; (918) 259-4300; fax (918) 258-0399.