Batavia school board approves purchase of new equipment to protect district’s network, student computers

The Batavia school board on Tuesday night approved the purchase of two new firewalls to help protect the district’s network.

The firewalls will replace the district’s existing firewalls, which will reach the end of their five-year life cycle in May. The cost of the purchase is just over $429,000.

“As a firewall, this is the top device on any network,” said Dave Thurlby, director of information services for the district. “This is the brain that protects everyone behind it, meaning your laptops, Chromebooks, phones, everything like that.”

Thurlby said that the cost is broken out over a five year period.

“It’s not a small number due to dynamic updates and trying to keep up with [artificial intelligence] ... and other things that are attacking on a minute by minute basis,” he said.

Aside from gatekeeping district data, Thrulby said that the firewalls come with a range of dynamic customization and content filtering options.

“You see a lot of stuff in the news from data leaks and things like that. [Firewalls] are the devices that help prevent [that],” he said. “It’s never a hundred percent but we do our best.”

In other meeting news, the district also approved an emergency amendment with food provider Quest Food Management Services for an increase in rates for elementary and middle school student meals.

“This doesn’t impact students at all, I want to make that very clear,” said Rotolo Middle School Associate Principal Josh Bulak. “What this is dealing with is our reimbursement rate. So basically we pay the company to provide the food and then we get a reimbursement from the state.”

The amendment would allow for a 13% increase in school lunch meal rates and a 9% percent increase in school breakfast rates, according to meeting documents.

“[Consumer Price Index] on all things is different, but on school lunch programs in particular, there’s been a 301% increase year to year, January to January, just like we experience with eggs at the grocery store,” Bulak said. “Our partner is asking for this increase to ensure they can continue to provide the high-quality food for our students.”

“If we extrapolate this over the rest of the year, it’s a $16,000 shift,” he said.

This school year additionally marks the end of the district’s current five-year contract with Quest, according to CFO Anton Inglese.

“[Inglese] and I went and asked ten different school districts ‘What’s your meal reimbursement rate?’,” Bulak said. “And even with this increase, we are still the lowest in the area.”