Moorpark Fiber Optics Firm Wiring Schools to Get Online

Dave Cheaney and Paul Walker, owners of Moorpark’s C&W; Fiber Optics Inc., have been spending a lot of time lately at Chaparral Middle School in Moorpark.

The business partners are not on campus to brush up on any of the three Rs. Instead, they are there preparing the school for the one I--the Internet.

“We are trying to get the school online, by providing and installing the inside wiring for the buildings, the data wiring, the telephone wiring, the television wiring,” Walker said. “We are installing the backbone.”

Wiring Chaparral Middle School for the latest in communications is part of the Moorpark Unified School District’s three-year plan to bring its schools into the 21st century technologically.

District officials outlined a strategic plan earlier this year that identified some of their high-tech networking needs. Cheaney, who has two children in the Moorpark district, helped devise the plan.

“They are looking at the hardware, the software, the network infrastructure that would enable teachers and students to become active participants on the data highway,” Walker said. “When we are done running the wiring through the ceilings and the walls, and wiring the campus together, they will have a full local access network that will allow the campus to interact with the outside world.”

C&W;’s involvement with the Moorpark Unified School District is not the company’s first public school experience.

Cheaney and Walker have installed local area networks at Palm Springs High School in Palm Springs and at dozens of elementary and secondary school campuses in the San Bernardino and Riverside areas. The 4-year-old company also is working with Santa Paula High School to install an on-site network system.

“As of late, there has been a tremendous push to implement the information highway and Internet access in the entire educational system throughout California,” Walker said. “Without it, I am not sure how students are going to compete with their counterparts.”

Frank DePasquale, assistant superintendent for instruction and support services for the 6,500-student, nine-school Moorpark district, said the goal is to have Chaparral Middle School wired in the coming weeks, with Moorpark High School and the other secondary schools close behind. The elementary schools, he said, will follow suit within the next three years.

“I think the ability to access information is critical for students,” DePasquale said. “Other components like word processing and spreadsheets are also crucial for students getting into the work force.”

DePasquale said the communications system will also allow teachers, schools and district officials to communicate more effectively with one another.

“We need to do a better job of communicating all the way around in our schools, and the way to do that is through our technology plan,” he said. “We want to have networking capabilities in every single classroom in our district . . . getting communication between schools, among teachers and also between schools and the district office.”

Countywide, public school districts are at different stages in hooking schools up to high-tech communications networks.

“It’s a mixed bag,” said Ken Prosser, director of information technology services for the Ventura County superintendent of schools office.

“Oak Park last summer spent a lot of time and effort getting their schools wired with a local area network. Hueneme is the most advanced. Ojai is behind the curve, just getting ramped up right now,” he said. “Some of those networks go to one or two classrooms, some to four or five, some only to the administration office.” The county superintendent’s office has an Internet home page through which it links all county schools and administration offices that have Internet capabilities.

Prosser said that of the approximately 200 public schools in the county, 70 are hooked up, including those in the Ventura Unified and Oxnard High School districts. Another 40 schools, he said, should be linked within the next couple of months.

“We are kind of the central hub for the school districts in the county,” Prosser said. “Ultimately, we will have every single site hooked up.”