The Lawrence Public Schools Information Systems & Technology (IS&T) Department provides technological leadership in the management and distribution of information by providing excellent and cost-effective products and services to support the mission of Lawrence Public Schools.

IS&T is committed to serving the District office, school faculty, staff and students by providing reliable and efficient computing services in the secure environment by achieving the following goals:

• Ensuring the smooth operation of the District’s computer network at the fastest bandwidth available
• Providing prompt technical support to all of District’s computers to minimize downtime
• Assisting schools and other departments in researching and procuring the best technology available for curriculum and instructional purposes
• Making recommendations to the Superintendent’s Office for school technology-related issues

IS&T with the help of Celt, Comcast, and Verizon, currently maintains and supports a wide area network (WAN) with fiber connection from the District Data Center to all schools. The fiber connection connects all the schools to the District Data Center so that all schools can access the Internet via a 500mbps connection provided by Comcast through Celt. All of the network connections from the District’s Data Center as well as the schools’ desktop computers are Ethernet 100Mbps with the exception of the high school which has a 1GigE to the desktop. We are currently planning to implement wireless in the schools for laptops and virtualizing servers to save energy. 

Most of our classrooms have at least four computers (three for students and one for the teacher) connected to the school network and have monitored access to the Internet. Every school lab has 30 computers and at least one printer.

Some of the system-wide applications running at the schools include:

• AS400
• Munis
• Carnegie Learning Mathematics
• Fast Forword by Scientific Learning
• Fastt Math
• Learning Village
• Plato Learning via Web
• PowerSchool
• Scholastic READ180 Reading Intervention
• System 44
• Waterford by Pearson Digital Learning

A new phone system implemented by IS&T allows all staff to access to their own voice mailboxes, which ensures better communication between schools and parents and among school staff. The entire network infrastructure has also been upgraded to the latest technology available to accommodate the increasing demand of the school network usage. A Tandberg video conferencing system is implemented at most if not all schools so that they can video conference with places such as NASA or go on virtual field trips.