The Weilheim-Schongau district showed some foresight when it began planning an IT concept for schools in its sponsorship back in 2017.
Although this is expensive, it has now paid off in pandemic times.
District
- The situation a few years ago was - to put it mildly - unsustainable.
Every school had different hardware, which was mostly looked after by one of the teachers on the side.
If he went to another school or retired, there was usually silence in the staff room when asked who knows Linux and would like to take on the task ...
In the meantime, a lot has already been achieved and implemented, said the person in charge at the district office, Kathrin Horn, during the joint meeting of the district and school committee.
So they agreed on uniform hardware for all schools and thus set technical standards for each classroom.
Framework contracts were also put out to tender and concluded because the joint purchase of uniform devices usually achieves better prices and you can often save yourself the tender.
"Schools are very satisfied with the solution"
The biggest cost item, however, was the commissioning of three companies that have been taking care of the school IT since 2019.
The IT of the district office only takes care of the networks and the WLANs in the schools.
Everything else - construction and installation of the hardware and software, help in the event of problems - was done by the companies.
One of them is responsible for the Weilheim, Schongau and Penzberg areas.
"The schools are very satisfied with this solution," said Horn on the committee.
In the meantime, there is increasing demand for support - "it takes time to become established and accepted".
In the event of problems, the consultants would access the computers remotely or help out on site.
So everything in butter?
“Of course there are also difficulties,” the responsible from the district administration continues.
The flow of information is difficult when so many different partners work together.
The companies also had to rethink.
Normally they would have had their own providers of hardware and software, now they had to familiarize themselves with the standard technology.
Meanwhile everything is going smoothly, said Horn.
That's why they'd like to extend the test phase.
Originally, the services were tendered for four years, but as part of a test phase, the contracts were only awarded to the companies for two years.
This deadline would end at the end of August 2021.
Horn pleaded for the company to be awarded the contract for two more years.
Establishing a subsidiary of the district is to be examined
During this time it should be clarified how the support of the school IT should be organized in the future.
The fact that the IT department of the district office takes care of the computer technology in all schools sponsored by the district cannot be provided in terms of personnel.
However, the establishment of a subsidiary of the district should continue to be examined, which should not only take care of the schools, but also take care of the technology of the hospitals and, if necessary, the technology in the town halls of the cities and communities in the district, if this is to be done wish (and pay) this.
But legal exams still have to take place here, says Kathrin Horn.
You also have to see whether this model would be more cost-effective on the bottom line.
Because the supervision of the school IT by the external companies obviously works very well, but also costs the district a whole lot of money year after year.
Horn put the costs incurred by the district at around 430,000 euros per year.
The district councilors were not afraid of the amount, Klaus Gast (CSU / Weilheim) said, “As extensive as the range of tasks is now, you can no longer do it on the side.
Uniform support is the right way to go.
And if the private sector can do that, it should do it too. "
Karl-Heinz Grehl (Grüne / Weilheim) saw it very differently.
He demanded that the establishment of a “district computing center” should not be lost sight of.
"That has to be checked," he said.
Meanwhile, there was agreement in the committee on the question that the Free State of Bavaria would have to contribute to these costs in the future.
“When it comes to after-cost support, the Free State is currently on a lean footing,” admitted the deputy district treasurer Matthias Brugger.
However, this should be discussed again in the summer.
Therefore, in the end, both committees voted to extend the contract.