Though education budgets might be frozen or face further reductions in school districts from coast to coast, some educational technology leaders have found innovative ways to update their schools’ technology and expand important ed-tech initiatives.
In San Antonio’s Judson Independent School District, Chief Technology Officer Steve Young has saved the district valuable dollars by examining current ed-tech practices and moving toward more “green” computing.
With 22,000 students and 3,000 employees, Judson ISD is facing the likelihood of a 5- or 10-percent cut in state funding next year.
“We know we need to cut more than we have in the past and do things differently,” Young said during a Jan. 18 webinar sponsored by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). That includes going green by reducing electricity consumption and reducing heat creation to lower building HVAC costs. San Antonio’s local energy provider estimates a 50-percent increase in electricity bills over the next 10 years, Young added.
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Judson ISD started its money-saving initiatives by examining its ed-tech use, and district leaders ultimately decided to develop a green computing initiative in order to run more efficiently.
Young and his IT team opted to run virtual servers with VMWare to reduce the number of physical servers in the district, along with power consumption, cooling, and data center requirements. The district also purchased Energy Star and EPEAT certified computers.
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