Case Study: Craven County Schools Connectivity Project


Organization: Craven County Schools, Craven County Government, Community College, and the cities of Havelock and New Bern
Location: Craven County, North Carolina
#Students: 14,753 students
#Schools: 24
Date: 10-18-2007

Summary

Collaborative project to implement a county-wide fiber optic installation to be shared by school system, community college, local cities, and county government.

Overview and Description

For over a decade, the mission of the North Carolina Connectivity Council (NCCC) has been to improve the quality and quantity of North Carolina's broadband connectivity. The School Connectivity Program is the culmination of several years of envisioning the 21st century classroom and developing a North Carolina workforce poised to meet the challenge of a global economy. The Craven County Schools Connectivity Project is a part of the NCCC's School Connectivity Program and was designed to pool limited school resources through a partnership with the county and city governments and the local postsecondary institution. Rather than being a consumer dealing with the limitations of an outside vendor, Craven County Schools Connectivity Partnership ultimately will own and operate its own fiber optic network and, once it is completed, will offer its fiber optic capacities to other non-profit and for-profit agencies.

Educational Applications Deployed

Craven County Schools use various learning system programs, financial programs, information system programs, data warehouse, maintenance and technical request programs, child nutrition and point-of-sale (POS) programs, media cataloging programs, and school and district improvement programs.

Educational Challenge or Background

For many years, Craven County Schools, like many districts in North Carolina, has been facing growing pains regarding connectivity. Although the district previously had a WAN and 25MB connectivity to the Internet, it could not afford the next generation of WAN services because of the high cost of leased frame-relay, wireless, or managed Ethernet services. Under the existing WAN and 25MB connectivity conditions, services such as IP telephony, video conferencing, and centralized server/server management requiring bandwidth were not affordable for Craven County Schools. Therefore, the district began looking for alternative solutions to the high cost of recurring leased lines. What the district did next ultimately changed communications within the Craven County community for the next technology generation.

In 2005, Craven County Schools began exploring the possibility of constructing its own fiber optic network. It started by learning where fiber was already deployed in the county and then identified potential partners to work with. District officials learned that the cities of Havelock and New Bern both had limited fiber optic projects and that both cities could have better communication with the county and various agencies. The Craven County school district decided to initiate a collaborative partnership with the cities of Havelock and New Bern, Craven Community College, and Craven County Government to develop a joint fiber connectivity project.

In the months following, the various participants developed a memorandum of understanding and set a goal of constructing the project in three phases. Phase I was bid in August 2007, and construction started in October. During this phase, Craven County will construct its own fiber network, which the partnership will own and control. Internet connectivity will ultimately be expanded to 100MB and beyond for the schools.

Technology Solution (including people, process, organizations, and vendors)

Participants were Craven County Schools, Craven County Government, Craven Community College, the citeis of Havelock and New Bern, and Corning Optical Fiber.

Community Groups and Organization Involved

No outside community groups or organizations are involved at this time. However, the district's intent is to ultimately offer service to nonprofits and additional local and state agencies.

Benefits

One benefit is that other than general maintenance expenditures (i.e., when a backhoe digs up or destroys a buried cable), there are no recurring costs. Another benefit is that Craven County schools now have unlimited use of the infrastructure.

Implementation Barriers and/or Challenges

One challenge has been to secure the additional funding necessary to both complete the project and implement the technologies that operate the new infrastructure. Another challenge has been to facilitate communication and understanding both between and within different agencies.

Links to Supporting Resources

http://connectivity.fi.ncsu.edu/ North Carolina School Connectivity Program

http://www.ncconnect.org/ North Carolina Connectivity Council

http://www.ncwiseowl.org/erate/docs/NCCC_booklet.pdf Snapshots of Connectivity

http://www.co.craven.nc.us/it/rfp.cfm Craven County RFP for project