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Denver Public Schools

Overview

With over 125 schools, 68,000 students, and very scarce resources, Denver Public Schools (DPS) faces a delicate balancing act in allocating limited resources. But because DPS officials believe that technology can serve as an education resource multiplier, DPS has taken the lead in implementing advanced technology to serve both current and future needs—while actually cutting costs.

As recently as 1990, the large urban school district struggled with a paper-based system supported by only rudimentary technology. At that time, DPS officials set a objective of giving all DPS schools access to a mainframe computer for administrative functions such as reporting grades, attendance, and school lunch fees. This initial objective soon developed into a long-term vision for classroom connectivity across the district.

DPS did not want to work with a multitude of vendors, or with inexperienced vendors. "We needed a resource that could 'hit the ground running' with our project. We wanted a proven company - not one on a learning curve - so we chose Qwest," says Dwight Schmitt, DPS telemanager.

DPS asked its Qwest team for help in planning, re-designing, and re-engineering the whole district network to take advantage of lower cost new technology.

Qwest Account Manager Naomi DeJarlis says, "DPS had a vision of what they wanted to do. We set out to design a system that would exceed their expectations. We knew we could help them provide access to information beyond administrative purposes, in new ways that advance educational objectives and strengthen communication between students, teachers, and parents."

Background

To begin, DPS created "DPS Net", deploying high-speed T-1s (1.544M bps) between each school site and its administrative center, giving every school access to the district's mainframe system. As part of DPS Net, every K-12 classroom in the school district received access to the Internet, allowing for fast and easy communications between classrooms, schools, and the world. As a result of this vision, DPS was one of very first urban districts with Internet access in every classroom.

"We think we have done a good job introducing technology into the classrooms without adding cost," Schmitt says. "When we started re-designing our system seven years ago, the Internet was just beginning. Now it gets tremendous use as a research, access, and tool for DPS students and teachers."

DPS Net was designed with room to grow, and can handle additional bandwidth demands in the future. "When we re-designed our system, we provided almost twice the capacity each department requested. We knew people would use the system more than they imagined - after they found out what it could really do for them," says Schmitt.

Solution

The backbone of DPS Net is Qwest's Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), a fiber-based set of services that allows users to communicate at very high speeds. With SONET's efficient use of bandwidth, DPS can continue to add innovation and applications without fear of slowing the network or bringing it down.

An additional attribute of SONET is Qwest Self-Healing Automatic Route Protection (SHARP), an option which ensures system reliability. If a cable is cut or a facility outage occurs, the DPS network will automatically route traffic around the problem area and heal itself instantaneously.

According to Schmitt, this is an extremely important feature because the entire DPS network comes into one building. "A system outage would be a disaster. It's hard to quantify the value SHARP gives us," he says.

Conclusions

Denver Public Schools has realized significant bottom-line benefits from its re-designed network. According to Schmitt, the DPS total annual telephone bill is now about $700,000 lower than it used to be—thanks to efficient, cost-effective technology from Qwest.

Schmitt says, "It's hard to believe a network that does so much more, costs so much less."

DPS is also taking advantage of Qwest resources to help it apply to the Universal Service Fund for Education (E-Rate). Schmitt and DeJarlis have worked together to assemble all the contracts DPS can submit for the federal discount. "Our Qwest team has helped DPS put the records together, and we have also used the company's website to access template technology plans that have been very helpful," says Schmitt.

The Denver Public School system and Qwest have a relationship that supports a richer learning environment for the students and families of Denver. "DPS believes there is a correlation between investing in technology and successful education. They are capitalizing on that idea in very innovative ways," DeJarlis says.