At last night's meeting, the Portsmouth School Committee approved $5K for a study to develop a district technology vision, but what's more significant is what they did *not* approve.

While the posted agenda item was an innocuous "Authorization to have a Technology Study to Establish Long-Term Goals," the backup material originally specified appropriating funds to assess the feasibility of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI. At a high level, VDI is a way to deliver a personalized computing experience across a network. Imagine your home PC being turned into a "virtual" device hosted on a remote server; instead of needing a big box on your desk, you can interact with "your" machine from any computer — or even your phone.

Enabling anywhere/anytime access is a worthy goal, and there is no question schools need to explore this, but there are challenges and options to consider. VDI requires very large initial outlays for infrastructure: one study by IT consulting firm Forrester pegged the upfront cost of a 2,500 seat installation (slightly larger than what would be needed in Portsmouth) at $1M.

The School Committee Technology subcommittee (of which I am a member) met last week and discussed VDI as one of several approaches, including software-as-a-service offerings (like Google Docs and Microsoft Office 365) and alternative ways of delivering remote access to the school network. The subcommittee explicitly tasked Portsmouth IT Director Rose Muller to work with the district technology committee (composed of technology-savvy teachers and administrators) to develop a perspective on technology vision and options.

So how did this end up being proposed as a study on VDI? Superintendent Lynn Krizic wrote the agenda item.

She admitted this, in public session, when questioned by this reporter. This agenda item was not drafted by Tech subcommittee chair Tom Vadney, who explained that his understanding of the guidance from the subcommittee had been a more general exploration, an interpretation that was supported by school committee member Dave Croston, who also attended the meeting.

So this agenda item did not reflect the understanding of subcommittee chair Vadney, who is the community's elected policy-setting representative; rather, it was crafted by the Superintendent. School Committee Vice-chair Jonathan Harris jumped to Krizic's defense saying that VDI was the direction the subcommittee intended. "I talked to a couple of people on the committee," he said.

It will probably not surprise you to hear that he did not talk to me. And, come to think of it, why would Jon "Too Big To Fail" Harris even care about something like this?

Well, the nickel dropped for me last night listening to one of the other agenda items, the approval of the Council 94 contract. In addition to the expected changes to the retirement plan from defined-benefit to defined-contribution, there was oddly specific language about restructuring the IT department and the nature of the severance package those staff would receive.

Let's connect the dots: Harris and Krizic push for VDI, which gets rid of all the infrastructure and moves it to an off-site server farm. Now you can potentially cut several staff positions.

But, you may ask, what about supporting the actual devices in students' hands? No problem. In Supt. Krizic's world, kids bring them. This notion, called "Bring Your Own Device" or BYOD, is gaining traction in corporate and educational environments. And at last week's subcommittee meeting, Dr. Krizic advanced the notion that the district might not need to supply devices, since so many students had their own.

This reporter responded — I will admit, a bit testily — that not every family could afford to buy their kids a laptop or iPad for school. As someone from Island Park, I look around at all the houses on the market and the folks I know who are out of work, and I don't see them being able to pony up a few hundred extra bucks for each kid to bring a device to school.

To his credit, subcommittee chair Tom Vadney immediately tried to walk back Krizic's suggestion by saying that the district could create a "free or reduced-price technology" plan to provide equipment for those who couldn't afford it.

But even that, I think, glosses over the ugly reality: VDI + BYOD = a hidden tax on parents.

It was a positive development that this approach was taken off the fast track last night, and I'd urge any interested parents to attend the next Technology Subcommittee meeting on October 15 at 6pm in the PHS library.

Full disclosure: I am an appointed member — until Harris kicks me off — of the School Committee technology subcommittee as well as serving as a community representative on the Portsmouth School District technology committee (I've been the sole community participant for a couple of years in the District's state-required tech plan, and you can't touch me there, Jon.)

See: Jerusalem, Chapter 2, plate 30, lines 49-50.