The Glenbrooks partner with District 214 on technology disaster recovery plan

On April 9, the Glenbrook High School District 225 Board of Education considered a technology disaster recovery plan that would provide a backup to district resources in the case of an outage or emergency.  Chief Technology Officer Marcus Thimm outlined a program that would connect the Glenbrooks with Arlington Heights Township High School District 214 through a direct fiber link.

"By collaborating with other organizations in our area, we build internet capacity, bandwidth, and redundancies," said Thimm.  "These measures will assist us during potential power outages, natural disasters, emergency situations, and also in our daily efforts."

District 214 was identified as a strong partner for this type of collaboration because they are similar in structure to District 225.  Both are high school districts that utilize many of the same systems. The 10-mile distance between the two districts provides an additional layer of protection in situations such as power outages or natural disasters.

"This partnership will help to ensure our crucial internet-based services such as student information systems, learning technologies and business systems including payroll would continue to operate," said Thimm.

In addition, the two school districts recently collaborated on a Request for Proposal (RFP) for new servers and storage.  These new technologies will help both districts increase capacity, capabilities, and consistency in order to assist with implementing the new disaster recovery plan.  Both districts may also benefit from future cost-savings earned by sharing server space, services, and leveraging dual equipment needs in a bid process.

The disaster recovery plan will be implemented this summer, and may continue to expand in the coming years to include Oakton Community College, local feeder schools, and additional government entities.

School calendar for 2013-14

The Board reviewed the first draft of the 2013-14 school calendar.  This calendar offers many of the same features of current school years such as the "Emergency Snow Day" built into the last day of spring break.  This calendar includes a start date of August 21, 2013 and a potential end date of June 5, 2014.  The Board is expected to vote on the calendar at their next scheduled meeting.

View proposed calendar for 2013-14