WATERLOO — The DeKalb Central school district has upgraded the technology in its board room to improve the livestreaming quality of its meetings to the public.
The district used $65,000 of COVID Relief Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding to pay for the upgrades. All work was carried out by the district’s maintenance team, said Superintendent Steve Teders.
The district began livestreaming its meetings in the spring of 2020, when in-person attendance was limited due to COVID-19 crowd restrictions.
“We knew right then we were going to have to make some adjustments,” Teders said.
“We had been talking about how to open up the board meeting more to the community and to our families, and then when the pandemic hit, it kind of fast-forwarded that discussion.”
When the district first began livestreaming, its board meetings were being held in the DeKalb High School cafeteria.
“Our tech department was basically taking everything with them to make it happen — very burdensome, cumbersome process. We had to meet in a larger location because of all the COVID guidelines. But once those started easing we knew we were coming back to the board room at some time, that the pandemic would come to an end and the guildelines and protocols would ease,” Teders said.
Teders said the technology in the board room was not up to speed for what the district wanted to offer for online viewing and livestreaming.
“When the government provided the federal funding through COVID relief, we realized that ESSER 3, which was the third bucket of federal money for COVID relief, there were opportunities there to use funding from that to upgrade our technology,” Teders added.
The improved technology features two cameras, which allow for the technician in the booth to be able to transition seamlessly between shots, Teders said.
The platform, at which the board and district administrators are seated, has room for nine people, each having individual microphones. Four large flat-panel display screens are set up around the room and there is updated audio, a presentation station and a booth for a technician and the board secretary.
The board room also has been updated with fresh paint, wood stain and carpet.
“We saved so much money by being able to use our own staff to do this work,” Teders said.
“We just have a fantastic maintenance department. Each one of the guys in that department just have skill sets.”
Now, the district is looking at livestreaming board work sessions, in addition to regular meetings.
“We just have to ensure that we’ve got the resources, which we do now for technology, but the manpower, the staffing to make sure we can man it, because it’s after hours and we tend to stretch our technology department when we start doing things like that,” Teders said.
“We tend to try to look for the positives in COVID and I would say that the upgrading in our technology in the board room is a positive because it’s more accessible to our community, so we’re proud of that,” Teders added.
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