Mount Vernon Schools will be migrating their telephone systems to a cloud system as opposed to an onsite system.

Technology director Sean Flockhart said that the max cost for the migration would be $22,145.

The school has a contract with Cisco WebEx that extends until 2029 for phone services.

School board member Jason Clark was concerned with the school’s contract, as Cisco’s market share continues shrinking.

One of the reasons Flockhart was happy with moving to the cloud system is that the school has redundancies for their internet connections, drawing from either Iowa City or Cedar Rapids for their service.

“It’s why we didn’t lose internet at all following the derecho,” Flockhart said. “We lost power for a few days, sure, but our network continued functioning.”

Flockhart said the decision to move from an onsite system to a cloud system is to provide better security and more reliability. He said that if there is an issue with a server on campus, it can mean substantial downtime for phone systems as the patching to multiple servers occurs. With this move to the cloud, that eliminates the need for patching and security updates to the servers, as that’s completed by Cisco WebEx.

The $22,145 would be a Physical Plant and Equipment Levy expense, and superintendent Matt Leeman said it’s within the budget for technology to be making.

Flockhart said that Mount Vernon needs physical phones in classrooms as a security device, due to the issues with cell phone signals in many of the district’s buildings.

Flockhart also said his biggest fear is something like a ransomware attack hitting the district, and shifting the phone systems to the cloud service would make that one not to worry about.

The update is scheduled to be made during the winter holiday break for the school.