11/14/1995 SCHOOL - HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING COMMITTEE Minutes

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Committee. Mr. Kirwin agrees and they will but that should not stop anyone else from trying . Peter asked about the Dept . of Rural Electrification grant, has he gotten any information on that? Mr. Kirwin said what he has seen is not relative to this project but he will look into it further. Peter asked how many students will be able to dial in, with their modem, to the school at once? Mr. Kirwin said the system is now configured for 8 . That will probably not be enough 5 years from now but the system can be re configured. The School Department has to make some serious decisions on who will have access and what level of exposure they want to take . Paul said a lot of the information students will be seeking can be down loaded in 5-6 minutes and the next person can get on. Mr. Kirwin said you are not loosing anything by starting with 8 . The school department will have to discuss if they are an information service bureau, and how they are going to manage licensing issues . Paul had some questions about the telephone system. Is it better to use the auto attendant up front and then use the receptionist as back up? Mr. Kirwin said the School System would prefer the call to be answered by a person. You can always shift it over to auto attendant. Paul said the Centrex system is used by the schools and town hall but the contract runs out in 1997 . NYNEX makes a fortune on Centrex. It may be best for the long range to switch the system here at the high school and the others can follow. Mr. Kirwin has explored that with NYNEX. The equipment at the other schools and town hall would have to be modified. The Committee would like to see an analysis from CCR on the two phone systems . Mike Pietrowski said the price of Centrex will probably come down with the new communication bill ( in Washington) . OPX circuit is not so cheap. Paul suggested, for the voice mail , you dial directly to the classroom, if the teacher is busy it will directly forward to the mailbox, to save a step. He would like for there to be only one phone number for the school , to make it clean, not one for the auto attendant and one for receptionist. Paul said IBM recently proposed providing unloaded PC' s to bring down the price so more people can access the Internet . Is that worthwhile for the school , do we need the horsepower at the workstation? Mr. Kirwin said it is an interesting issue. He would shy away from that kind of application because you don't want to run everything on the network or it will become over burdened. Video production and distribution: all the technology in this system has been designed to the same level of competence , cameras , editing equipment , connections to auditorium, protection throughout the building . 3