For the Chinook School Division, cyber-security continues to be one of the main concerns.

At its most recent regular meeting, the Manager of Information Services Rob Geiger was on hand to discuss the traditional technology status report.

Geiger's presentation focused on a number of areas, such as a recent backup server refresh, the purchase of Chromebooks for students, and the ever-present danger of phishing attacks targeting teachers and potentially board members.

Of note from the meeting, especially in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, is that the school division is moving closer to its goal of having a one-to-one model for students and computers. With the purchases from the previous year, that number is sitting at 8-to-10; with 8 Chromebooks available for every 10 students.

The emergency generator installation which had been discussed in last year's Technology Status Report is expected to be completed by March, which Geiger said will prove to be a large improvement in the division's network reliability, as each schools' data passes through the data centre.

Somewhat that Geiger had been hoping would not need to be completed until the next fiscal year is sadly becoming more pressing; that of hardware failures in the division's servers. As hard drives and motherboards fail more and more frequently, Geiger notes that the servers have to taken offline for sometimes more than a day.

As a result, the school division has begun to plan for the upgrade.