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October 2024
In this issue:
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Welcome back -
We have many exciting updates to share with you. As always, summer is a busy time in the education technology world.
While this is a normal part of the K-12 routine, I am proud of the Cascade Technology Alliance team efforts and we look forward to continuing to partner with you this school year. We set ambitious goals in order to deliver excellent service to your district.
This year, in collaboration with Clackamas ESD, we are hosting a three-part EdTech Cadre for teachers, coaches, librarians and tech leaders. Participants will explore crucial topics like artificial intelligence, digital citizenship, and digital student well-being. Coffee and lunch will be provided and substitute reimbursement is available.
Finally, mark your calendar for the return of the EmpoweredEdu AI conference in May 2025!
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Stuart Long,
Chief Information Officer
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Reducing the risks from cybersecurity incidents has been at the core of CTA’s efforts for many years. In addition to hiring a dedicated team of cybersecurity professionals, we have also expanded our use of the XDR software suite to monitor identities at use throughout our systems and desktops.
Multifactor authentication is a requirement for all CTA staff when accessing our systems remotely and for utilizing our VPN connections. We work with partners such as CISA, utilizing their free vulnerability scanning services, and we conduct our own internal scans to find and fix issues between our systems and much more.
Since October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we would be remiss if we did not share our encouragement to be vigilant in your online interactions, especially with emails. The rise of artificial intelligence chatbots has strengthened their abilities. In addition to the usual caution of being aware of emails that require urgent action, check the sender's email address and compare it to the actual company's website. For example, make sure that microsoft.com is not confused for microsoft.org.
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Together with Clackamas ESD, we are hosting the EdTech Cadre in 2024-25 for teachers, coaches, librarians, and technology leaders. Participants will explore crucial topics like artificial intelligence, digital citizenship, and digital student well-being. Coffee and lunch will be provided and substitute reimbursement is available.
Register to attend.
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STEM Like a Girl is coming to Clatsop Community College's Lexington Campus in Astoria on Saturday, October 5th.
CTA and NWRESD will host the the Sunday, December 8th workshop in Hillsboro.
All 3rd-5th grade girls and a parent or adult caregiver can attend these hands on workshops. The cost is $25 per parent-daughter pair ($15 for additional daughters within the same family).
Sign up to volunteer with Stem Like A Girl
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In 2022, CTA entered a series of conversations with the technology leaders in schools supported in Clatsop, Columbia and Tillamook and Washington counties. The goal was to increase network resiliency by replicating a meshed regional K-12 network built by school districts and CTA across the river in Multnomah County.
At the start of last school year, CTA released an RFP via the eRate process and secured vendor proposals to build dark fiber networks to Astoria, Gaston, Forest Grove, Neah-Kah-Nie, and Yamhill-Carlton.
Beginning this school year, we will re-issue another RFP to expand this network even further and move us closer to our goal of resiliency for all districts through collaboration and interconnection.
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After planning and review, CTA purchased new storage and servers this summer to replace our rapidly aging production hardware. This is one of the many changes that are not visible but makes a huge difference in the performance of the systems we rely on.
Adam Berryman, Sadako Hattori, Mark Jacobson, Eric Lloyd, and Aaron Sackett contributed to refreshing the server infrastructure that hosts Synergy, School ERP Pro, Destiny, and many of CTA’s other systems.
The new hardware will improve server reliability and performance and is expected to be brought online over the coming months.
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CTA's Application Development team was busy improving our online tools. We've launched updated versions of the Outdoor School Signup and STARS applications, featuring exciting new functionalities and a refreshed look. But we're not stopping there – we are hard at work developing the next generation of the ORMed application. Stay tuned for version 2, planned for release in Summer 2025!
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The Homeschool Notification application supports nine Oregon Education Service Districts and their component school districts. The application allows parents/guardians to self-register for homeschooling their students. Once enrolled, parents/guardians can generate letters certifying homeschool participation and create letters for colleges, universities, and the Department of Motor Vehicles.
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There has been a lot of activity in the school Medicaid world these past few years, and it’s about to get even more exciting. The Oregon Health Authority has just revised rules to expand the types of services that School Districts can bill to receive partial reimbursement from Medicaid.
We completed an overhaul of the MAC (Medicaid Administrative Claiming) application in the Fall of 2021 and have been making regular improvements since then. This year, we started a complete rewrite of our ORMed (Medicaid Fee for Service) application. We are in phase two of our four-phase upgrade, slated to be completed in the Summer of 2025.
The ORMed upgrade will be delivered just in time for our participation as a subcontractor for a Center for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) grant awarded to the Oregon Health Authority. The grant will support the implementation, enhancement, and expansion of Medicaid school-based services. ORMed will be the Medicaid billing system used by school districts in a pilot program to access Medicaid reimbursement to help support the cost of school-based health services provided to students.
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Approximately 600 student leaders will use the NWRESD Outdoor School Signup to register to lead 6th grade students this fall.
NWRESD Outdoor School Signup collects all student leader information, automates approvals from parents and school counselors, tracks training and background checks, and automates email communication.
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The NWRESD School Team Attendance Reconnection System (STARS) program uses a newly released “version 2” of the STARS application.
The application allows regional school districts to create a referral for service to the NWRESD Attendance Services team to engage with students and families to improve attendance through reconnection.
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