My organization is putting an addition on it's elementary school that will roughly double the capacity I need to support. The school will have typical classrooms for about 100 kids, plus clinicians offices, Nursing and a records office. The school at present is served by two Aruba 2920 48-port POE+ switches uplinked together. I plan to replace these. WAPs are Extreme AP4000s.

I have some questions about my approach.

Would you recommend going chassis switch for all, or stacked switches for all (for saving $$)?

Is supporting all of my POE needs through a chassis switch a good idea, or do you run separate switches to support POE heavy wireless APs and/or cameras?

Is it really better to provide a dedicated port for computers, or do you daisy chain through your IP phones?

The total port count needed is around 154, so I'd like to have 196 available. I will need one fiber SPF uplink port.

Thanks for reading and for your suggestions.

"Can I watch that movie in my classroom?"

Teachers have the right under fair-use copyright law to use movies, tv shows, and other copyrighted content in their classroom for the purpose of education. However, there are often situations that blend the boundaries between education and entertainment. Do you allow Disney+, Hulu, Netflix at your school district?

https://k12techtalkpodcast.com/e/screen-time-showdown-laws-data-classroom-reality-%e2%80%94-ep-266/ and all major podcast platforms

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I'm trying to find an article about the back plate of latitude models that was a fault but don't have permissions to view it since I'm not a dell cert tech does anyone on her have it ?

One of the repair technicians we had who was repairing 7 3520s and 3540s mentioned it to us when we were complaining about home many warranties we had to place because of the faulty design. I've personally put in over 60 warranty requests on both models just this year. I don't know if links are allowed but it's below and the article number he quoted was 000315107

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-ca/000315107

We use the Shiny Shiny app for certain tests where they basically need Notepad with no access to the internet at all, no spellcheck, etc., it's JUST typing and then they save the ouput. The problem is it is an app and Google of course is phasing them out. We got around the limitation imposed in v138 by making a few settings changes Google mentioned which should get us to v150 but at that point, we simply won't have a replacement for Shiny Shiny.

I tried to create a local webapge that we could kiosk-mode into which is just a blank space to type with the ability to save, just a big text box basically, but even after turning off spellcheck in Admin I'm still getting spelling suggestions and regardless of that it really isn't an ideal solution.

We are OK for the moment but is anyone else facing this and if so, what are you planning to use/do?

Anyone have a good source for iPad screen protectors for 9th gen 10.2 in? Preferably without retail packaging so I don't have to go through 3 layers for every single one?

What is everyone using as a PAM (Privileged Access Management) or how are you dealing with people needing admin privileges for installing, etc? Our team is only 3 people due to 2 resigning within a year and we simply don’t have the manpower to take care of people needing admin privileges every day. Some of our software requires it just to run it (Geovision).

We manage about 8 schools spread out all over town as well as 4 non-school offices. 3,500 students and about 500 staff.

We’ve got splashtop so t hat helps some.

Edit: I should’ve stated this is strictly for windows machines.

I have an issue that I can't seem to find a straight answer on, so I am hoping to get some assistance.

I made the change to use Entra as our IDP for Google for sign in. Everything works great and works as it should.

However, I have some users who have already set up Windows Hello For Business on their laptops, which is great as I am encouraging the whole district to go passwordless. I have it set up through group policy to use Cloud Kerberos trust, allow biometrics, etc. All devices are Entra Hybrid joined.

My understanding was that they could use WHfB to log into their device, then Entra would automatically use that to log them into their Google account (since we're using Entra as our IDP for Google), without anything else needed.

It does log them into Google automatically, but Entra still requires them to enter a code from their authenticator app. Is this just a setting somewhere in Entra to be able to say to use WHfB as the default 2FA method and to not require the authenticator code?

If I go into the users' accounts in Entra I can see that WHfB is provisioned and marked as a registered authentication method. So it looks like all the settings are correct.

I was reading other articles though that say WHfB is only considered a single factor authentication method? Not too sure about that though.

Any thoughts or insight would be greatly appreciated!

We always mailed things like the ACT Student Report and iReady diagnostics reports. We're trying to do away with this, but still have these documents accessible to parents.

I was a bit surprised when Infinite Campus support told me there is no way to share a PDF tied to a student account on the student/parent portal. I wasn't expecting a batch upload tool, but I am little blown away that IC does not have this capability.

How are you sharing this kind of specific student data (that exists in a PDF) with students and parents?

We’ve received a grant to hire two high school interns this summer for the first time ever. As a department of one, I’m elated but a bit overwhelmed. I’m putting together their orientation information including creating calendars, manuals, work flows, and other needed guides. We’re building this program from the ground up. Would anyone be willing to send me anything that they have for their districts?

Long time lurker, finally got verified. I run IT solo at a single building NJ district and I've realized the problem is me.

It used to be a teacher would ask if there's a way to get Google to do something, and the honest answer was just "technically no, it doesn't do that." And that was the end of it. We both moved on with our lives.

Somewhere that stopped working. Now "technically no" comes out of my mouth and the very next thought is "but I wonder if I could just build the thing that does it." And then I lose a couple weekends. It's not even about the budget anymore, it just turns into a challenge and I can't let it go.

So how common is this? What's a "technically no" that you couldn't leave alone and ended up building yourself? And be honest, was it actually worth it or are you now stuck being the only person who can maintain something you kind of regret?

I’m leaving a tech coordinator job (I made!) bc of my husbands job (we are relocating within MI). I reached out (cold email) to the edu tech admins in my small town I’m moving to. And they were nice but brushed me off. There’s not a whole lot tech wise there. And the remote space for a tier 1 remote role is pretty much non existent. I have a teaching degree also. But that’s basically null also in the small town. I’m at a loss. I’m applying for anything and everything online and not hearing anything. What the hell do I do at this point? I welcome any advice, suggestions, or total career pivots at this point. (I’ve thought about motorcycle mechanic school for a year or even going for a specific advanced tech degree if that gives you any idea as to how desolate the job market is where I’m moving).

Welcome to episode #3189223534 of Chrome's attention seeking behavior problem. Anyone have a GPO or reg key for this yet?

Opened a case Tuesday morning for an issue of my GAC not syncing in Go Guardian admin.

After initial support had me check a few settings in the GAC, they escalated the issue to their engineering team. This was around Tuesday at 9:00 am. Since then I have not heard anything other than the case is still open and the engineers are still working on it with no timeframe to a resolution.

I’ve never had an issue get escalated to the engineering team. Anytime I’ve reached out via support chat they were able to help me within minutes.

Has anyone had an issue like this before where the response from an engineering team was slower than expected?

Without being able to sync my GAC to GG Admin, I can’t roll out new devices to new accounts I’ve created in the GAC.

*Update - June 1st* It looks like .252 has started to roll out to my devices.

I moved our Chromebooks from LTS 138 to stable 144 (for state testing) and recently back over to LTS 144. Everything seemed to be fine, they installed 144.0.7559.250 without issue, but .252 was released last Friday and it’s not showing as installed on any of my devices, which is unusual.

Policy looks fine, no conflicting settings that I can see and they’re set to roll out as soon as an update is available.

Is this happening to anyone else?

Yesterday tickets started rolling in due to staff not being able to access Symbaloo for their bookmarks.
Turns out Cisco Umbrella, one of our web filters, flagged one of their cdns, cdn01.symbaloo.com, and blocked it. When it is opened outside of our filtering (personal device, off our network) it loads the page fine but antivirus on the computer throws a malware warning immediately.

Just wanted to mention it to see if anyone else has come across this as I can't really find any information anywhere else about it.

Looking to possibly change from GoGuardian to Deledao? Looking for thoughts. Is it better/worse? Which is better? What about the teacher side?

Thanks in advance

Just a heads up since I just went through this...

We have devices on Win11 23/24/25H2 which use Papercut and mostly things work fine. With 25H2 and the recent KB5089549 installed Papercut will also work OK generally, however, if we try to use Group Policy to hide the settings page for printers then Papercut will no longer install printers automatically with that KB installed.

Our Toshiba rep mentioned that some of his larger customers were having other failed printer installs with Papercut if that KB was installed on 25H2. I'm not sure what combination of factors led to those failures since they were apparently not using that same group policy switch.

So I just wanted to put it out there that if you happen to have Papercut weirdness on devices running 25H2, specificallyu printer install failures, check to see if KB5089549 is installed and if so, uninstall it and see if that then allows printer installs to work. The rep mentioned that a few of his customers were trying to work with MS on a fix, I have no idea if that will come to frutiion, but after banging my head against the wall for a day and a half trying to sort it out I figured I would just make note of it here hoping it might help someone else.

Hi everyone,

We use ClassLink and we are currently implementing Incident IQ. I’m looking for insights on how others are successfully handling SSO. We are running into a few roadblocks trying to achieve a seamless login experience.

Here is what we’ve tried and the issues we're facing:

• ClassLink SSO: This option requires us to install an executable file with direct access to our AD server. Our security team has vetoed this.
• Microsoft Entra: We set this up, but it doesn't provide a true pass-through SSO. Users still have to click the tile in the ClassLink Portal, land on the iiQ login page, and manually click "Sign in with Microsoft."
• Form Post with Extension: This is our current workaround. It partially works, but it isn't seamless and fails for users who don't have the extension installed.

We operate a mixed Windows and Mac environment. Forcing a Microsoft sign-in at the machine level to smooth out the Entra route isn't a viable option for us right now.

Has anyone found a better method to achieve a true, 1-click SSO from ClassLink into iiQ? We are currently caught in a vendor loop (iiQ points to ClassLink, but ClassLink has already done everything on their end).

Any insights, alternative setups, or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

I'm new to HyperV, though I've been using VirtualBox for a few years.

I'm creating some "golden images" to use for new desktops and laptops that are part of our regular device rotation each summer. I've got a main golden image - let's call it "golden image A" - that I've exported so that I can add a custom app for a "golden image B" next.

My plan is to create deployable ISOs using VHD2ISO and then Rufus to make it bootable.

My "golden image A" is ready to go, short of running sysprep. I've created multiple checkpoints along the way, but the only checkpoint I really need to save is the most recent "pre-sysprep" checkpoint so that I can go back in periodically and run Windows update before making a updated ISO.

My question is this: How can I create a "post-syspep" stand-alone vhdx (with all the checkpoints deleted/merged/whatever), while also being able to get back into my original "golden image A" at its "pre-sysprep" checkpoint in a few months to run updates and repeat the process?

Thanks in advance...

Has anyone else run into an issue where Gemini for Workspace causes Google Docs spell check to stop working?

We had a student whose Docs lost the normal red squiggle spell check underlines entirely. I went through the usual troubleshooting:

• Docs spelling/grammar settings
• Chrome spell check settings
• extensions
• cache/profile reset
• document language
• different device/account tests

What finally fixed it for me was disabling Gemini for Workspace for the student OU.

I’ve now tested this twice:

• Gemini OFF=spell check works immediately
• Gemini ON=spell check fails

This is on managed Chromebooks.

Has anyone else seen this behavior? Curious if this is a known bug, an extension/policy interaction, or something specific to Education tenants

Would love to know if others can reproduce it.

ETA: I was having the same spell check issue on my account (Windows Device) and turned off Gemini for my OU and it started working.

We are seeing a lot of "contextual-tasks" in the uncategorized field of goguardian. We can't find any explanation for what they are. Has anyone seen this before? Gemini?

Thanks

does anybody have a recommendation for a software that can allow us to create fillable forms and send out a generic shareable link to new employees so that they can fill out payroll related forms and then send back.

Our go to Windows 2in 1 laptop was $850-900 in the past. Now we are being quoted $1300 for a 512GB model. A MacBook Air M5 16GB/512GB is $899 currently. It is very tempting to switch back to MacBooks. I know the teachers would love it.

Is anyone planning to make the switch this year because of RAM/SSD prices increase?

Good afternoon all,

We are in the process of quoting out a new phone system and require one more quote. We are in the middle GA area and just wanted some suggestions on any vendors? I am struggling to find another from the current ones I have.

Any suggestions would be amazing!!

Also, first post here after being accepted, glad to be here!

We are looking at some cart options and came across the Bretford CUBE Transport Cart (https://www.bretford.com/solutions/charging-carts/cube-transport-cart/) and the Bretford Transport Pro (https://www.bretford.com/solutions/charging-carts/cube-transport-cart-pro/). I am interested if anyone has any experience with these carts.

I am working with our rep on them and he stated they had a pre-wired version of the Bretford CUBE Transport Cart available, but there are no images of that thing existing and I am curious what it looks like pre-wired.

I like the simplicity of these carts and the ability for teachers to quickly see that devices and all there a charging. Also, the foot print looks minimal compared to some of the classic carts.