Pennsylvania District Wireless Links High schools

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The West Chester Area School District (WCASD) in Pennsylvania is deploying a district-wide wireless network to link all computers in its high school English and math classes.

One of Pennsylvania's 10 largest districts, WCASD servers more than 12,000 students over a 75-square mile area. It is one of 79 districts participating in the first year of Pennsylvania's Classrooms for the Future program, which provides government funding to enhance English and math instruction, discussions and projects through technology.

Network integration provider Comm Solutions (Malvern, PA) worked with wireless LAN technology company Aruba Networks to wireless network the district's computers, and Aruba implemented (Sunnyvale, CA) its role-based access controls and firewalls to manage access and protect the networks.

"Our objective was to deploy a highly reliable wireless network that required minimal IT overhead, could be centrally administered, and was scalable for future expansions," said Chris Ross, network support director for WCASD, in a prepared statement. "While the Aruba network is very extensive in terms of fielded equipment and the number of sites served, we have been able to deploy and maintain the network without adding any additional IT staff. Additionally, we were able to replace the dedicated computer labs in the elementary schools with in-classroom computers, freeing up valuable space for additional classrooms without having to construct new buildings."

To determine optimum placement of wireless access points Comm Solutions used Aruba's RF Plan software to import the schools' floor plans, eliminating the need to conduct a full site survey, lowering the time and cost of network needs analysis and design.

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About the author: David Kopf is a freelance technology writer and editor, and can be reached at [email protected].

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About the Author

David Kopf is a freelance technology writer and marketing consultant, and can be reached at [email protected].

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