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When a school gets grant money or other funding, it often leads to a major upgrade to the environment, which doesn’t always go as smoothly as people would like.

That was the case in this story where a school was installing a brand new WiFi system and projectors for the teachers that would let them teach much more effectively.

Of course, there were problems right from the beginning, but thanks to the effort of the tech support team, they were able to be overcome.

This just shows that while money is important in schools, it is just as critical to have the right people working on the jobs. Read through the full story below.

Tales From the District: Achievement is Not Tied to Money (The Projector Project)

Those reading today’s post may have noted my critical stance on the ultra-high-super-priority school program implemented by the school Superintendent in order to boost test scores in poor performance schools.

Let’s see what this is all about.

This tale is about my favorite school from that district: A high-minority, 90% Title I (low income, free-lunch program) school that was the #2 school in the entire district for test scores.

I know what some of you might be thinking: What does this have to do with tech support? Well, the secret to their success (in part) was Classroom technology integration.

The principal wants to update their technology, that is good.

“Wireless.” The principal is sitting at her desk, smiling at me. She requested to meet with me today before I went on my typical repair rounds.

She was young, highly intelligent, and also one of my favorite principals for the schools under my support umbrella.

Do you need wireless if you don’t have laptops or tablets?

“Wireless? We don’t have that implemented yet. What exactly are you wanting to do?”

I was a bit skeptical. They didn’t have much in the way of laptops at the school, and I didn’t see what putting wireless there would accomplish.

Ok, that seems like a smart setup.

It turns out, she had a plan. A good one, at that. The school was built in a style that had four classrooms in a “pod” (what they called them).

Basically, the hallways would lead to a secondary hallway, which was like a “lobby” of sorts. Each “lobby” would have a color LaserJet printer, and doors to four classrooms and a “support” room, such as a janitor’s closet or storage room.

The plan was simple: We put wireless APs out in each pod, then the teachers would be provided with HP Tablet Computers. In addition, all the classrooms would be equipped with networkable projectors.

There is always a problem.

They had the funding, as the principal had found and applied for a grant that would give them additional funds for integrating the technology into the classroom, and it was approved.

It was awesome– I love new technology, and I’d be at the ground floor of this project, which means I can get it done right from the beginning. But there, as always, was a problem– they ended up having to hire a contractor to do the wireless installation.

Oh well, sometimes you have to live with things like this.

This did not please me. Contractors suck. They always do things in a way that seem psychotic and cause more problems than solve.

But, I have no say in the matter, so the contractor installs the wireless APs out in the pods, and I run through and set up all the projectors in the classrooms after the plumbers and carpenters from facilities came by and installed mounting points for them.

Things seem to be progressing smoothly, so far.

Plumbers, you ask? Well, it kind of made sense– they had metal pipes, and the equipment to cut said metal pipes, and the equipment to thread said cut metal pipes. So, the plumbers would make the pipes, then the carpenters would mount them into the ceiling.

I get everything set up, and I’m given a box containing a bunch of USB wireless dongles for projectors. I install them on all the projectors, hook them up, and get things running.

Technology rarely runs smoothly right from the start.

Things were working ok. Pod 1 was working really well, and I had all four teachers with tablets and projectors going.

Of course, this would not be an interesting story if it was, “I installed it, it all worked perfectly, and the school was awesome.”

After finishing the rest of the school, I would get frequent callouts there with problems with the wireless. It was dropping a lot, the projectors were having issues staying connected, and various other problems.

At least they were able to narrow down the problem.

I reconfigured the APs, and did as much as I could to get it fixed up. It improved slightly, but it wasn’t helping much.

Finally, I had Extremely Competent Tech come by and help me out with testing things. After a couple of hours of work, we finally figured out the issue: The APs sucked.

They were Linksys routers with non-standard firmware to make them act more like APs than routers. We ran to Chips, the local giant computer parts retailer, and grabbed a cheap $15 router.

Progress is being made, and it isn’t costing to much.

After configuring this router, we turned it on. Over the next couple of weeks, the complaints remained the same for pods 2-5, but pod 1 was extremely stable.

Pleased with the solution, I bought enough routers to cover the rest of the pods, and did the same configuration changes to them.

Keep on troubleshooting.

Things improved quite a lot, but there was still issues with the projectors freezing up and disconnecting during high usage times.

I investigated the bandwidth usage– 100% when all the projectors were running, and since they all connected via 802.11G, they didn’t have much.

More research, and then I discover– these projectors have an alternative dongle. I have the school order four of them and place them out in pod 1.

Great, problem solved.

They worked perfectly from then on. The teachers were quite pleased. Seeing this result, the rest were ordered for the school, and all of the projectors were converted over.

What magical solution was this? Ethernet dongles. The contractor was using PoE injectors to get power to the APs, so we already had a long ethernet cord going up to the APs.

Adding an additional cord to go to the projector from the AP was a minor thing, and due to the extra bandwidth provided by ethernet, the connections stabilized.

What is phase two of this project?

All the teachers now had a free-floating laptop with a stylus that could be used to project anything through the network onto the projectors. The teachers were pleased, the students loved it… and the test scores started going up.

This wasn’t the only factor, of course, but one of many. Rather than deciding that money being thrown at the school to fix the problems would work, the principal had a multi-part plan that would fix it all:

These are all essential things for a good school.

• Intervention programs. When a teacher found a student was struggling, the school had programs in place to allow for additional tutoring and assistance to be rendered.
• Parental involvement. Even though the school was low-income, the principal had encouraged, quite heavily, parents to participate in the school. Because of this, parental involvement was quite high, and when parents are involved, they become more invested in their child’s performance.

Teachers who love their jobs are invaluable.

• Awesome school culture. Teachers LOVED working there. I loved working there. The staff loved working there, and the students loved attending there– the culture at that school was the best I had encountered, and I think it was partially responsible for the test scores, since happy people make for better learning environments. In addition to this, except for one teacher who replaced someone that had retired, all the teachers were working in that school for at least 5 years. They knew the school. They knew the students.

Technology is jus tone piece of the puzzle.

• Technology integration. The teachers were encouraged to use computers whenever possible in their instructions. Every classroom had at least 3 computers in each room for students to use during class time, and the projectors and tablet computers added to the technology integrated there. This school was one of the least techno-phobic I had encountered, and I believe it helped immensely.

Money doesn’t fix schools, smart use of money does.

This school had won multiple state recognition awards for its performance– and its budget was not any higher than schools with similar demographics and attendance numbers.

Good leadership and wise spending decisions make all the difference, and without those, this school very well could have been an Ultra-Super-High-Priority school that the Superintendent thought would need “improvement.”

This sounds like a wonderful school that operates wisely. And the results speak for themselves.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

Sometimes you do what you have to do.

Smart spending produces results.

This person has some questions.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who wants their shed gone, and won’t listen to any arguments.

This person benefited from a great school.

A good school can make all the differences in the world to the students. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to create and sustain a truly effective classroom.

It requires ongoing effort by everyone in the school.