Wellesley Public Schools: Fiscal Year 2026 Budget
also have the option to use a school-issued device throughout the year. Families who need assistance with Internet access have been provided with mobile hotspots as needed. Our classroom ecosystem includes teacher and student devices along with audio/visual components to enrich the classroom experience and expand the nature of content that can be used in learning. In addition, the audio/visual components, such as interactive screens and Soundfield Systems, make learning more dynamic, enabling different forms of presenting information to support a wider variety of learning styles. Behind the classroom ecosystem is the infrastructure to support our environment, which includes network switches, wireless access points, servers, and routers. The Hunnewell School building project budget included replacing the infrastructure and interactive presentation systems in the new school building, while the iPads and laptops will continue to fall within the technology capital budget. In addition, the Hardy School building project required us to purchase technology for the new building. For forecasting purposes, it is important to note that the replacement of technology equipment purchased through the building project budgets will need to be absorbed by the capital budget when those devices reach the end of their usable life. Also included in the technology capital budget are expenses related to the implementation and maintenance of security systems such as public address systems, 2-way radios, security video cameras, card readers, and door controllers. Wellesley Public Schools in collaboration with the Wellesley Municipal Light Plant (WMLP) has been upgrading the fiber network connecting the schools to each other and to the internet. The technology team met monthly with WMLP to identify ways to align the projects of the WMLP to the school’s needs. The five-year plan for the fiber network was developed with the goal of 10 gigabyte (Gb) connections from each school to the data center at the Middle School and the data center at the High School for redundancy. This network is used for phones, data, security systems, and building maintenance systems so performance and redundancy are both critical. The fiber plan was aligned to the current school building projects and when the buildings have been launched, the five-year plan projects will have been completed. WPS Tech Dept will need to collaborate with WMLP again to plan out the next five years of projects aimed at increasing the resiliency of our network. Wellesley Public Schools participates in the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund, commonly referred to as “E-rate.” According to the U.S. Department of Education, “The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) is an independent, not-for-profit corporation created in 1997 to collect universal service contributions from telecommunications carriers and administer universal support mechanisms (programs) designed to help communities across the country secure access to affordable telecommunications services. USAC carries out its functions as the administrator of the federal universal service programs and Universal Service Fund (USF) under the oversight of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).” 1
The E-rate programs provides discounts on two types of technology expenses:
Category 1 Wellesley Public Schools continues to take advantage of E-rate Category 1 funds receiving a 40% match on connection to the internet for students and Wide Area Network (WAN) connections. Category 2 Wellesley Public Schools had fully expended Category 2 funds in FY’20; the program provided Wellesley Public Schools with a 40% match on internal connections and infrastructure for student use. The future
1 https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service-fund
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