Building Modern Networks in Independent Schools

Independent Schools Face Unique Challenges With Strong Motivation

Private, charter and independent schools face unique challenges when it comes to networking upgrades. They also have powerful reasons for ensuring their equipment is current.

The need for 24/7 uptime complicates the logistics of an equipment rollout. 

“They could be boarding schools, they could have a residential program component, they could have faculty housing, and they have to maintain connectivity year-round,” says Ashley Cross, senior director of education and content for the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools.

“In recent years, it’s become increasingly important to diversify revenue streams through camps and summer programs,” she says. “Summer used to be a time when it was very easy to do major infrastructure updates, and now it’s essential to the school’s revenue that we have these auxiliary programs that are running all the time.”

As a result, “there really is no convenient time to do this,” she says.

Add to this the complex nature of private-school facilities — older buildings with thick walls, unique architecture, sprawling campuses — and upgrades may start to look daunting. But network modernization is imperative.

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“As schools continue to adopt more connected devices, upgrading to Wi-Fi 6 is a valuable consideration,” Cross says. “It handles high-density environments better, and it’s becoming more necessary to suit the needs of modern-day education.”

Wi-Fi 6 “can handle more connections simultaneously,” she says, “and the increased capacity helps reduce network congestion, especially in high-density environments.”

There are security benefits, too, with the Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 security protocol. “WPA3’s encryption is more secure, and that’s going to reduce the risk of cyberthreats and unauthorized access,” Cross says.

Those who have made the leap say it is well worth the effort.

Gonzaga College High School Upgrades Network Infrastructure

Gonzaga’s Morton knew a Wi-Fi upgrade would be challenging. 

“It’s hard to do a campuswide Wi-Fi rollout when the entire campus is using the Wi-Fi to learn during the school year,” he says. “And we do an extensive summer school here as well, so we had a very tight window to replace 105 wireless access points across our campus.”

The pandemic depleted the funding and attention that would have normally gone toward technology refreshes, but the project still had to get done.

Morton initially planned for an upgrade in summer 2025, “but the issues we were having with the previous infrastructure — the lack of performance and reliability — pushed the upgrade up in the schedule,” he says.

In 2024, his team moved to deploy the latest Cisco Meraki APs. 

“We went with Meraki because I had previous experience with it at a former school, and it was very reliable,” he says. “Most important is the support. When you get on the phone, they answer, and they’re there to help you.”

To make the rollout happen smoothly, Morton and his team did a campuswide wireless site survey to account for infrastructure barriers such as walls and other materials. 

“As a result, we redesigned the placement of APs in about 20% to 30% of the cases. We went forward with a plan for upgrading wiring where we needed wiring upgrades, and a plan for distributing the installation across my team,” he says.

In addition to the access points, Morton supplemented the school’s existing CAT 5 cabling with CAT 6 wherever new cabling was needed. The team did a lot of that work in advance, and when it came time to deploy the new infrastructure across five buildings, 90% of the installation was completed within four days, he says.

To fund the upgrade, Morton laid out the stark reality of the situation for the school’s chief operating officer. “He saw the need, he went to the board and found the money to make it happen,” he says.

The impacts have been clear from day one. 

“Before, we were getting multiple tickets per week, and now it’s zero tickets,” he says. And the new infrastructure has prepared the school for the future.

“We’re well positioned going forward,” he says. “I have a predetermined refresh lifecycle established for all of our technology infrastructure. For network equipment, it’s seven years. The refresh would start phasing in at year five or six, so prior to year 10, all the APs would be replaced.”

North Carolina School Plans for the Future

At Sallie B. Howard School, a free public charter school serving 1,200 students in Wilson, N.C., Sandeep Aggarwal wanted to stay one step ahead of a growing connectivity issue.

“When testing happened, we had some issues with a lot of students trying to connect to the network at once. We were beginning to see some of those issues come up, and we knew our demand and use of technology would only grow in the future,” says Aggarwal, dean of business, technology and cultural affairs at SBHS.

“Classroom teaching is not the same as it used to be,” he says. “Every student and teacher in the building is using technology at one point or another throughout the day. That’s why having strong connectivity is very important, because instruction in the school depends on that. All the business operations depend on that.”

DISCOVER: How can schools make strategic long-term investments in technology?

His team turned to Juniper’s Mist-AI network to deliver robust Wi-Fi everywhere, from classrooms to the parking lot and other outdoor spaces. While SBHS runs some summer programs, most of the school is out at that time, so the team used that window for the rollout.

Coordination was key to success. 

“We have a leadership team — our deans, our principals, our technology people — there are key people in the building who understand the operations of the school, and they know the impact of what we’re doing,” he says. “We all get together and think through everything, making sure all i‘s are dotted and all t’s are crossed. That’s what happened in this case.”

In terms of funding, “we planned for this for some time, and we kept some amount in the budget for this upgrade for the board to review and approve,” he says. “When key stakeholders are aware of why we are doing what we’re doing and they are on board, things go much smoother.”

Beyond fixing the immediate connectivity issues, the upgrade has set up the school for success going forward.

“When we did the upgrade, we kept future growth in mind. Right now, we are not using all of the bandwidth that we have, and that’s a good thing because we projected for our usage to grow,” Aggarwal says. “Our bandwidth will be able to accommodate growth for the next five or six years, maybe even more.”