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Schools consortium to pay off network
By Denise Dick
COLUMBIANA
After more than 13 years and nearly $12 million, a network that provides computer services to Mahoning and Columbiana County schools will be paid off next month.
Area Cooperative Computerized Educational Service System — or ACCESS — will submit the last $383,050 payment to the bank June 26.
Representatives from the member school districts met Tuesday to mark the occasion at a luncheon at Das Dutch Haus Village Inn.
John LaPlante, ACCESS executive director, said discussion about the network began in March 2000 as rural schools required increased bandwidth and telecommunication companies that offered the service didn’t allow school districts a say in operations or costs.
Construction of the fiber-optic network was completed in 2005.
The consortium restructured the financing over the years and brought in commercial partners to help with payments.
In 2004, the Columbiana County Port Authority and Data Recovery Systems bought two and leased two of the network’s 12 fiber strands. Verizon uses part of the network to connect cellphone towers in Mahoning County.
Anna Marie Vaughn, superintendent of the Columbiana County Educational Service Center, pointed to the educational benefits provided by the network. Regardless of what kind of testing the state decides to require “the future is online testing,” she said. The network allows schools to accomplish that.
Other schools across Ohio are connecting their buildings much like Mahoning and Columbiana counties did 10 years ago, she said.
Mike Meloy of DRS said there are commercial benefits, too. “You allowed the business community — government and commercial — to take part in the vision you had,” he said.