Smart Technology For The New School Year

Park High School in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, is “Home of the Wolfpack.” It is among just 20 high schools in Minnesota that offers the prestigious International Baccalaureate Diploma (IBD) recognized at many universities worldwide. As an award-winning school, the students, parents, staff and administration at Park High School depend upon technology for quality high school campus life.

What is Data Cabling?

Data cabling — also called structured cabling — makes it possible for buildings and campuses to communicate effectively. When technology is networked correctly, systems deliver the best quality technology and performance for all users.

When technology becomes outdated or messy cabling is left unattended, this can slow performance, incorrect ports can get unplugged and systems malfunction, as well as many other challenges. Even trying to remove a single cable from a large tangled mess can cause stress on the other parts of the system and cause connectivity problems. This can result in network and channel errors in the hardware that can be difficult to trace and costly to fix. In addition, cabling congestion in the underfloor space hinders the airflow of the computer room air conditioning unit that can cause cooling issues and technology to malfunction.

The Challenge for Park High School

Park High School is part of the South Washington County School District 833. There are over 1,800 students enrolled in grades 9-12, with 110 teaching and support staff members.

“The biggest challenge Park High School faced was that it was very difficult for network engineers at the school to troubleshoot technology challenges quickly,” said Tim Hilvka, Solutions Engineer with Brothers Fire & Security. “With over 20 different data equipment rooms, they needed to consolidate down to seven rooms or less with the project completed on budget and on time for the new school year.”

The Solution

Park High School’s school district approves copper and fiber optics as the industry standard for data cabling solutions for all of its facilities. After being selected and awarded the project, the Brothers Fire & Security project team met with Park High School’s Network Engineer. All the data rooms were assessed, challenged discussed, the protect team clarified the goals and objectives.

Based on the current and future needs for the school, we created blueprints and recommendations, along with timelines and budgets. Our state-of-the-art technology made it possible for us to consolidate over 20 data closets into a well-organized and “smart” system with six new data closet locations. The project was completed on time and on budget before the start of the new school year.

Now, the new data cabling system at Park High School can deliver predictable performance and adapt easily to changes and growth as needed. In short, the new data cabling system makes technology work for everyone who uses it

The Impact

With the new data cabling system in place, students, parents and staff can now depend on their technology to support their award-winning school experiences.

Here are just a few of the many benefits for Park High School’s new data cabling system:
• MACs (Moves, Adds and Changes) are much quicker
• Less downtime and less troubleshooting
• Less frustration from technology challenges
• More access for more students
• More reliability to support daily access
• Increased quality of the technology experience
• Fast and smart – just like the Wolfpack!

Many thanks to Park High School for trusting Brothers Fire & Security to assess and resolve their technology and data cabling needs. Here’s to an outstanding year for the Wolfpack and the Park High School community.

About Brothers Fire & Security

As one of the premier providers of fire, security and communication solutions in the Upper Midwest, Brothers Fire & Security strives to build long-term, value-added relationships. We work with business owners and property management companies, as well as all types of public institutions to solve fire, security and communication needs. By taking advantage of our integrated bundled services, many of our clients find that they can save 25-30% on their safety services, annual inspections and more. From a single location to franchises throughout the region and the country, our integrated approach saves our clients valuable time, money and stress. We provide solutions for: data cabling, communications, security, system monitoring, fire suppression, fire protection and fire sprinkler systems.