Customer Case Study
Katy ISD used Cisco® technology to provide a reliable foundation that improves communications and education delivery
Business Challenge
Katy Independent School District (ISD) is located in the town of Katy, a middle-to-upper-middle-class suburb outside Houston, Texas. Of the district's 44 schools, 26 are elementary schools, 10 are junior high schools, and 8 are high schools. Currently, over 47,000 students attend Katy ISD schools, and the student population has been growing by an average of 3500 students per year. By the year 2015, an estimated 83,000 students will be attending the district's schools.
To meet this ongoing growth, Katy ISD has been actively constructing new schools over the past few years. However, officials feared that the district's old network would be overwhelmed by the ever-increasing student population. Since this network was originally designed to support a different architecture, it was slow and unreliable. "Our challenge was taking an infrastructure that really was not even servicing our current needs, and making it adaptable for the future," says Lenny Schad, the district's deputy superintendent.
The lack of a reliable network also hampered Katy ISD in its efforts to utilize new educational applications and student management systems. Instead of having a centralized server, with student systems and gradebooks at the district level, each school purchased and configured its own server. As a result, school data was essentially stuck at the school level, and could only be transferred to the district offices by CD-ROM. To make matters worse, each school deployed its own software and applications. This prevented district-wide standardization and optimization.
Katy ISD was also hampered by multiple phone systems that were configured differently at each school. "We had the typical basic telephone service lines coming in to seven different kinds of private branch exchanges (PBXs) and every kind of array that you can imagine," says Schad. Teachers and staff members were restricted by the inadequate communications infrastructure, which provided only 2000 phones for the entire district. "Where I worked, there were literally five phones in a building that served 90-plus people, so getting an outside line was virtually impossible," says Kelly Carr, a campus instructional technology facilitator. "Cell phones would not work in buildings at all, so you would constantly see teachers out in the parking lot trying to call parents."
Network Solution
In 2002, district officials decided to replace the old, failure-prone network with a converged IP network. At the same time, they decided that the old phone system had to go. "As a fast-growth district, we wanted to adopt a solution that provided added benefit beyond just basic phone service to our teachers and parents," says Jim Blackwell, a district IT project manager. "IP Communications emerged as a very cost-effective way to achieve that benefit."
Katy ISD challenged several networking companies to outline the requirements and bid on the projects, and then assigned a small pilot project to Cisco Systems®. InterNetwork Experts, Inc. (INX) of Houston, Texas, a Cisco Gold Certified Partner, was then brought in to help deploy the pilot solution. During the 2002 Christmas break, the old network equipment at two of the "worst-case" schools was taken out and replaced by Cisco equipment. This pilot was a huge success, and Cisco and INX were awarded the upgrade project for the entire district. "I've never had a problem with Cisco gear," says Schad. "So it wasn't a stretch for any of us to say `okay, we're going to go with Cisco and INX, and here's what we need to do.'"
The full-blown network and IP Communications upgrades commenced in the spring and summer of 2003 with five schools, followed by two new schools that were under construction. "Then it just dovetailed," says Schad. "As we replaced segments of the network, we came back and added the new IP phone system. Once a week, on Thursday night, we removed a PBX, installed the phones, and tested them the following day." To connect the schools, Katy ISD also deployed 310 miles of brand-new fiber-optic cable.
During the fall of 2003, the administrative phone systems were replaced, since the administrative offices were being moved. "It was an opportunity to get everyone familiar with this new IP phone system before 5000 phones were installed in the schools," says Blackwell. "We held training classes and brought in administration and support staff, plus many teachers and principals, so that by the time they actually saw the phones, they already knew how to use them."
While the network and phone installation was underway, a new wireless network was deployed in limited areas, including administrative offices, libraries, and labs.
In February 2005, the final school came online, and the network and IP Communications upgrades were complete. The district also replaced its aging Macintosh computers with Windows PCs. "We standardized a lot within the district, both from a hardware and a software standpoint," says Schad.
Business Results
Although the deployment occurred in a very ambitious timeframe, the network was quickly operational, and users began employing its features with very few issues. Students, teachers, and staff were soon able to enjoy the increased reliability, improved communications, wireless coverage, and new applications that the network supported.
Katy ISD can now utilize a highly robust network infrastructure. "We saw the speed of the network quadruple," says Schad. The improved network reliability was readily apparent to everyone who used it daily. "They rewired some areas of our building and it has been fantastic," says Carr. "It's very rare that we have a network problem at all."
With new IP phones in all classrooms, district communications have improved tremendously. "Everybody has his or her own extension, so that a parent who wants to talk to a teacher can call directly to that classroom," says Carr. "With Unified Messaging, they'll get voicemail that then turns into an e-mail." This new capability has opened up additional communications channels between parents and teachers. "I love our IP phones, because we can have conference calls with parents when they cannot get to the school," says Mandy Dickerson, principal of Cimarron Elementary School. "This provides a great way for a large group to meet and then involve parents, too."
Complete, secure wireless coverage is now available in all classrooms and offices, as over 800 new access points have now been deployed. "We are a wireless community; one of my schools has about 80 laptops that everybody uses all the time," says Carr. "Networking and connectivity issues are rare; no one has a problem getting on and we love having access to everything."
Through the new network, learning opportunities for students have taken a quantum leap forward. "The network enables our kids to work on more real-world projects," says Carr. "They have access to the Internet and to drives, plus their own place on the network to save their work. Each campus also has multiple projection units, which can be hooked up to laptops. If a teacher wants information, they can easily open a laptop, connect to the network, and project the information onto a screen. They no longer have to go to an outdated textbook or deal with connection problems."
The network also supports a new 911 emergency notification system, which speeds up response time in the event of a disaster or security incident. "We were the first district in the area to implement Cisco Emergency Responder, where every single phone call that goes out to 911 has a phone number tag on it," says Blackwell. "The emergency unit, principal, police department, and IT department all know the exact location where that call was placed."
The district's improved videoconferencing capabilities, as well as an online portal, KATYnet, are providing additional venues and resources for teachers. "They use KATYnet to talk to each other and share lesson plans," says Dickerson. "As far as videoconferencing, we're about to do a four-school link-up with fourth-grade science teachers, and our teachers can basically see what's going on without going over to the campus." Teachers can utilize united streaming video to remotely connect to a wide variety of media that they can include in their lessons or display on a large screen. The improved connectivity has enabled distance education, as students can now take "virtual field trips" to the Smithsonian, NASA, various zoos, and other locations.
How has the new network affected student achievement? The improved delivery of education, through online lesson plans that can be tweaked from year to year, as well as through streaming video and educational applications, have certainly made an impact. "Based on what teachers have stated, I think the more we go along with the new technology, the more test scores are going up," says Carr.
The new technologies have also enabled Katy ISD to gain a significant return on investment. "Just the simple integration of the phone system into our e-mail system saved money, and we really saved a lot on long distance," says Schad. "We tripled the capacity to be able to make calls at the same dollar amount, and that's going to become less each year." Additional savings have come from reducing the costs of moves, adds, and changes.
In the future, Katy ISD can count on a firm partnership with Cisco, which was solidified during the fast-paced deployment process. "From a vendor standpoint, Cisco has been and continues to be just a great partner in this effort," says Schad. "Any time the district had an issue, Cisco was willing to do whatever was needed."
For More Information
To find out more about Cisco Solutions and Services, visit: www.cisco.com.
To find out more about Cisco Education Solutions, visit: www.cisco.com/go/education.
To find out more about Cisco Voice and IP Communications Solutions, visit: www.cisco.com/go/voice.
To find out more about Cisco Wireless Networking Solutions, visit: www.cisco.com/go/wireless.
This customer story is based on information provided by Katy Independent School District, and describes how that particular organization benefits from the deployment of Cisco products. Many factors may have contributed to the results and benefits described; Cisco does not guarantee comparable results elsewhere.
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