The Lower Hudson Regional Information Center in Elmsford is partnering with California-based data integration company Talend to streamline the IT operations of some 60 school districts in Westchester and Putnam counties.
Joe Fitzgerald, the center”™s systems integration manager, said the goal is to control costs and improve quality.
The center, which employs some 170 IT workers and has an operating budget estimated at $30 million, has found a need to remain resourceful in a time of trimmed school budgets.
“We”™re impacted, but I think as a result of it, you find ways to be of value to districts where in the past, they would put on a new wing to the high school, but now they look for ways to leverage what they have and look for software to do things they may have done manually before,” Fitzgerald said.
The schools”™ operations are essentially carried out through Talend”™s open source data management software applications.
“The time value of data is what”™s important,” Fitzgerald said. “If you have 3,000 students and you happen to have an evacuation and phone numbers are not up to date, there is a liability if even one phone isn”™t picked up. Cost is not just about saving labor. We automate and use Talend to move data from the student information system to the messaging system in real time, which creates time value.”
The Lower Hudson Regional Information Center is one of 12 regional information centers in New York state.
