Last school year, Westerville City School District officials took proactive measures to prepare for online assessments. By restricting guest Internet access, as well as reducing district-wide access to certain Internet-based services, such as streaming music and video sites, the district realized an approximate 45 percent reduction to the bandwidth being used.
This past summer, school officials doubled the district’s bandwidth to accommodate additional devices that have been purchased and avoid the need to curtail internet access during State testing. To date, networks are operating within acceptable parameters and officials feel that no restrictions are necessary for upcoming State online assessments in grade 3 on November 10 and 11, and, providing no occurrences arise during the November test, this approach will be the same for the high school end-of-course tests scheduled December 5-8.
For planning purposes, staff and students are encouraged to limit to the extent possible the use of streaming video and audio on testing dates. While district officials believe bandwidth will be adequate to handle increased demand on the network, users will be notified immediately by e-mail should there become a need to reduce access to specific sites.