The St. Paul School District in Minnesota recently completed phase one of a multiyear classroom IT project in K-12 classrooms across the entire public school system. The initial phase represented the installation of more than 500 wall cabinets to improve IT capabilities in the classroom. The cabinets were sized to accommodate future growth in each classroom as new technologies are integrated into the IT systems.

The cabinets are affixed to the back wall of each classroom, inches from the ceiling to deter student contact.

The facilities department initiated the project after attending an event at a neighboring school district. There, members of the school district facilities team and consultants to the district took notice of wiring systems for computer classrooms. To enable convenient data drops to each computer, the data cabling ran across the length of each room and into nearby closets. The St. Paul team used this design as a basis for its classroom IT plan, adding wall cabinets to each classroom.

"The wall cabinets represent a mini-independent distribution frame (IDF) in each classroom, where we can run wiring within the classroom for staff and student computers, as well as back to the main distribution frame (MDF)," says Janet Yannarelly, management assistant at St. Paul School District. "In the long run, it will be far less expensive to convert a classroom for another use, such as a computer lab. The upgrades will be simple and cost-effective as we move into future phases."

The school district spent $2,000 to $2,500 per classroom, including the APWMayville MiniMax cabinets, a Cisco eight-port data switch and wiring.

"We came into this project with the understanding that we were going to spend money, and were looking to the future instead of the now," she explains. "The cabinets have enough open space to add more equipment for future expansion. For now, we are using some of that extra space to store wireless base stations and antennas that are unrelated to the core IT application. If we need to add another data switch in the future, we simply rackmount it in the cabinet and add more wiring to the room."

Each cabinet is approximately 24 inches by 24 inches by 24 inches and houses the Cisco switch and a fiber patch panel that connects to various data drops in the classroom for computer connections. The fiber patch panel can handle up to 70 computer connections within the classroom. Both units are rackmounted inside the cabinet, affixed to the cabinet sides using wire strips screwed onto the rackmounts. The wireless equipment is installed at the bottom of the cabinet, which allows for easier access and better security than when set out in the open or hidden in the ceiling.

Mike Smith, project manager of Peoples Electric in St. Paul, led the integration team over the course of the five-plus year project. "The extra space in the cabinet allows for larger fiber panels, and the extra ports can be used to simplify cable runs if a classroom wants to add more computers," he offers. "Instead of making 150- to 200-foot cable runs down the hallways, the staff can make 50- to 70-foot runs inside the classroom."

Wiring to and from the classroom computers is run directly into the cabinet through an access hole in the cabinet. Vertically mounted power strips provide electrical outlets for the eight-port switch, providing all the juice for the IT system in the classroom. Power injectors sometimes accommodate power for the wireless systems within the cabinets. More often, externally powered switches provide direct data runs between the wireless antenna and the local IDF or MDF.

An Ethernet fiber backbone connects the Cisco switches from each cabinet to the school's main server, with CAT 6 cables providing server connections and electrical power between the MDF, local IDFs and the cabinets. Most schools have one IDF, typically in a dedicated wiring closet on each floor. Some schools with expansive square footage per floor require additional IDFs per floor to accommodate distances of 300 feet or more to the MDF. A UPS system backs up all power on the main server rack in the MDF.

The MiniMax cabinets are affixed to the back wall of each classroom, inches from the ceiling to deter student contact. Maintenance can be performed from the front or rear, as the cabinet swings out from the support piece to the left or right for rear access to the equipment. The front doors are secured with a sturdy lock system, to which only technicians and some administrators have access.

The lack of equipment density within the cabinet keeps heat levels to a minimum. Noise was initially an issue with the eight-port switches, and the noise flowing through the perforated cabinet sides became a distraction in some classrooms. Thin insulation pads were installed to solve the noise problem, without drastically raising the heat levels within the cabinets.

According to Yannarelly, the APWMayville cabinets were evaluated alongside several competitive products. "We probably looked at four or five different solutions, but the APWMayville cabinets were the most cost-effective," she says. "They also met our requirements for depth, which was important considering the depth of the port switches. We were also seeking a smaller cabinet in terms of height, and no other cabinet fit the size we needed for either height or depth. The cabinets have also proven durable, easily handling the weight of the components."

Yannarelly expects to integrate smart boards and projectors into classrooms to provide interactive environments for the students. He says these items will be connected to the cabinets, given the additional space currently in most cabinets.

"Any data we require for these upgrades would likely run direct to power strips in the cabinets," says Yannarelly. "It makes more sense to run these within the classroom rather than to an external wiring closet. It reduces complexity and keeps our wiring costs to a minimum, allowing us to remain fiscally responsible as we add new technology. These cabinets will be a big help to us in the future through the flexibility they provide in the classroom."

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