Randy Gross’s broad job description also encompasses COWs and squirrels
Published 11:17 am Friday, November 14, 2008
By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Randy Gross, Dowagiac Union Schools technology coordinator, keeps 800 district computers running, along with all the things tied into them, from phones to video security.
"It's a pretty broad job description," he told Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday noon at Elks Lodge 889. "Technology is omnipresent. There is no occupation that I can think of today that's not going to have technology involved. If you're an auto mechanic, how do they fix your car? They plug it into a computer. It's only going to get more involved in everything we do. The other thing about technology is that it's changing lightning fast. IPhones in two years have changed the whole landscape of cell phones."
Ironically, Gross's program was relatively low-tech compared to other Rotary speakers with their PowerPoint presentations (some of which refuse to cooperate upon arriving at the Elks).
In fact, he brought an example about the size of one of his fingers of "how our schools talk to each other. This is how your Comcast network works. This is how your phone system works. I stripped this shield back. Normally, this piece of cable is (bigger around). The rest of it is all protection for these strands inside. There are 12 pieces of fiber optics in these tubes. Between our buildings in town – Sister Lakes is not on the network – we are running this fiber optic cable. Inside, there's a piece of glass smaller than a human hair."
Fiber optic cable can be strung aerially for $15,000 a mile versus $30,000 buried, so it was an economic decision to leave it exposed to squirrels.
"Fiber basically has unlimited capacity," he said. "Nobody knows exactly when you can saturate that stuff. The only problem we have with fiber is squirrels. They like to chew on the wire."
When he can gaze long-range beyond the squirrel-infested present, Gross sees a future where technology makes textbooks obsolete, if not some teachers.
"I don't know that you can totally replace infrastructure," he said. "There are areas where you might, like classes you can't justify holding because you don't have enough population student-wise for that particular curriculum. But in the county you might have 30 kids who want to take advanced calculus and you have one instructor in the county who's qualified to teach that class. Using distance learning equipment, you can have a real-time live class."
Gross remains skeptical of one-to-one initiatives which garner media attention.
"You give every kid a computer in a junior high, a high school or throughout a district," he explained. "Those are great ideas, but I don't think we're there yet. Nobody has shown me how they measure the success they claim.
"I don't think you'll be there until you get a device the size of an iPhone that's got to do more than be a computer. We need to eliminate all the (physical) textbooks and put them on this device. When you take a class, it's automatically downloaded to your device so we're not buying textbooks and lugging around 80-pound backpacks," Gross said.
Union High has five computer labs (a networked bank of about 25 computers) – one mobile, three classrooms and the media center. There are three at Dowagiac Middle School – two mobile and a technology classroom lab. The district owns some 200 printers.
COWs are computers on wheels which "MOO-ve."
"Carol Grandholm, the media center director at (DMS), wants me to make sure the second lab's called a CAT," Gross said. "Those roll into classrooms on a big cart that weighs close to 300 pounds. On top is a printer and a wireless access point. One cable plugs into the wall and they hand out laptops to everybody."
Network electronics "is overlooked a lot of times," Gross said. "That's what puts up the fiber optics so it will work together. It allows us to connect back to that fiber optic and back to my place in the tech center. All of our Internet connectivity comes out of that one place – not out of every building. That's where our six file servers are (plus another at Sister Lakes), so when Kincheloe's saving a document, they're saving it at my place."
The district has distance learning equipment with an attached camera called a polycom.
"It can talk to other equipment anywhere in the world," Gross said. "We have events where our kids are sitting in class looking at a 40-inch screen and can see somebody in Africa live in real time, zoos, NASA or dog-sledding in Alaska."
How is technology used in the school district? Gross's glimpse, not intended as an inclusive list, includes dedicated classes at DMS and DUHS, a high school CAD (computer-aided design) lab at the high school, lab times for all elementary buildings, integration into classroom use – such as research papers – use by teachers for additional reference materials and presentations, Read Naturally, Accelerated Reader, Study Island, Kidspiration, Inspiration, MS Office and Open Office, Type to Learn, Typing Tutor 3, Rosetta Stone and numerous educational games at the lower levels.
Additional uses include testing, financial accounting and human resources, SIS (Student Information System, "probably the most complex software application we run" because of data regulations), e-mail, security systems, food service and library circulation.
Pathfinder Center "is an instructorless classroom" thanks to its online capabilities where alternative students use computers to learn at their own pace. "Instructors are just if they have a problem," he said.
How much the district budgets for technology "is a real hard number to nail down," Gross said, "the reason being that technology in schools, in a lot of ways, is an unfunded mandate. Every public school is supposed to have this technology, and there are specific requirements in some areas, but generally there is no money attached to those mandates. You just need to find a way to do it. There are exceptions, don't get me wrong, but my budget is really for maintenance and upkeep. It's not for purchasing new equipment. We got new equipment throughout the buildings through the Durant settlement, but that funding is gone now, so we have to find new and creative ways all the time to fund all this technology."
Asked about special needs students, Gross told about a blind student who has a small computer with buttons, but no screen.
"He takes out a memory module and plugs it into the teacher's, which reads it and actually brings up documents he's created. They have them now that are not invasive into your scalp, but if you just think about a number or a letter, it can pick them up and the letters show up onscreen."
Gross was introduced by Hal Davis, assistant superintendent for business and operations. Davis has been with the school district 14 years, Gross eight.
"Randy was one of our vendors when I came to the school district," Davis said. "He got us out of a lot of jams and solved a lot of problems for us. When Larry Crandall was superintendent, he said, 'We really need a fulltime technology person in the district. I've got somebody in mind. Why don't you go talk to this guy and see if you can recruit him?' so we coaxed Randy into coming out of his private business and coming to work for the school district. Randy has saved us so much money we've never looked back. We have a joint venture going on with the city with a network. We have all of our buildings, a couple of them with COWs. All the equipment has been upgraded and is very efficient to our use in Dowagiac academic programs. Randy is very good at what he does."
Davis estimated the district spends $40,000 to $50,000 each year maintaining its current equipment. "We'd have to have $200,000 a year to keep up with technology, and we don't have that kind of money."
One upgrade source was the Pokagon Fund of the local Potawatomi Indian band from its Four Winds Casino Resort in New Buffalo.
Gross is an aggressive proponent of cost control by re-using everything.
"My place looks like a computer graveyard" that he cannibalizes for parts until they're obsolete.
Gross also taps the Universal Services Fund. The district qualifies for a 72-percent discount. "That money comes from that USF on your phone bill."
In addition to seeking grants, Gross searches out "free, open-source programs" which enable the district to save on software.
He believes Dowagiac was first in southwest Michigan to tap Google's "Apps for Education," which is free to schools. "We run our whole mail system through that application. Their pay version for corporations is $50 per user per year, so that saves us about $11,000. Google's Apps for Education also gives us document sharing, calendaring. We're happy Google is providing that and we're pretty aggressive in using that application.
"We use a product called OpenDNS for content filtering. Schools have to filter the Internet by law. OpenDNS is a free version of a content filter we use. I looked at one recently that would give us a little more control. The cheapest one I found was $9,000 with a $6,000-a-year maintenance fee, Gross said. "We save that money every year. Open Office replaces Word, Excel, PowerPoint for free."
"Some technology helps us as a department," he said. "We use WSUS server which sends out all those Windows updates. First Tuesday of the month is called 'patch Tuesday.' We push that out to a server through our computers, saving a lot of bandwidth on the Internet. We have an anti-virus server and Help Desk," an application which can report problems by e-mail.
"Hopefully," Gross said, "we can use the remote control option. I can remote control into every computer in our district."
Gross also has "locked up" every computer to prevent an educator from downloading free software off the Internet or trying out something they received in the mail which could introduce viruses.
Gross, a 1975 DUHS graduate, studied accounting in college, but was working for The Sound Room in South Bend, Ind., when he started running a computer store next door in 1980.
He followed jobs to California and Chicago, but otherwise is a lifelong Dowagiac resident. He and Vicki have been married for 33 years. His three sons have all graduated. Their daughter is a Union High School junior.
Gross's 2 1/2-person department – himself, Dee Herman and Kevin Wanko – are based in the auto shop adjacent to Union High.