Healthcare and Education
The world is experiencing hardships across different industries. Two industries that are top of mind for everyone right now are education and healthcare. Both industries have immediate needs. Classes need to be available for children of all ages including higher education. Healthcare institutions need to stay operational.
Beyond the classroom, this also impacts parents. They want the assurance that their children can receive a valid education (from home or in the classroom). They need to have access to the right tools to make this work. For full-time workers, they need to balance work and education for their child(ren).
Quick access to a healthcare provider (telehealth or otherwise) is a desire for all. Healthcare professionals need to keep things running efficiently wherever they are practicing.
Funding Available
Many organizations in education and healthcare are in need of various solutions to help accommodate these unusual times. The biggest issue is that many may not have the budget available.
There is Federal funding available. Many have acted on this and have already received their allotted amount. There’s also the possibility that many (including institutions) aren’t knowledgeable about who and what qualifies for the CARES Act.
CARES Act
On March 27th, the CARES Act was signed into law. The United States Treasury set aside $150 billion. Through the Coronavirus Relief Fund, the CARES Act provides for payments to State, Local, and Tribal governments navigating the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The CARES Act requires that the payments from the Coronavirus Relief Fund only be used to cover expenses that—
- are necessary expenditures incurred due to the public health emergency with respect to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19);
- were not accounted for in the budget most recently approved as of March 27, 2020 (the date of enactment of the CARES Act) for the State or government; and
- were incurred during the period that begins on March 1, 2020 and ends on December 30, 2020.
This funding can include Technology infrastructure maintenance, laptops for children for in-home education, telehealth and improved bandwidth capacity. There is a significant demand for institutions to keep up with the necessary technology and bandwidth as remote working and schooling continue.
Examples of How the Funding Can Be Used
This funding covers K-12, higher education, Telehealth and Healthcare providers at the state and local levels. Many organizations may ask how can this funding be used.
In healthcare, there is the need for never-ending storage for electronic versions of X-rays. These are typically very large files and will take up a significant amount of space in one’s current storage environment. This is one example in healthcare where funding is needed.
Another case is schools who store online educational software, student’s online reports, projects, etc. More and more file space is a need. Data centers will need to expand and costs for storage will increase. These type of funds can help education and healthcare institutions expand their storage to accommodate the forthcoming Terabyte avalanche. There are cases where these funds could pay for the entire storage upgrade.
Providing children with the necessary equipment to learn as much at home as they are in the classroom is expensive. However, like the potential storage costs being covered under the CARES Act, State or local funding, the same could be said for laptops. Below is an example of funding available from a fund titled, “Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER).”
Items to Be Aware Of
However, much like annual budgets prior to COVID-19, if funds are not used, then the next round results in a smaller financial injection. There are also local and state funds available for educators and healthcare providers. These have their own deadlines for application and expenditures. Below is a timeline of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) ($13.2 billion). This is just an example of what to be aware of when researching and applying for funds. There’s a ‘shot clock’ for obtaining these funds.
Recipients of the CARES Act, State and local funding must all meet the requirements. At Zunesis, we can help identify funds and grants which would be applicable to an education or healthcare institution. We have done this for several of our SLED and Healthcare customers. It can be overwhelming, but we’re very good at identifying these opportunities.
Being an IT Solutions provider, we can identify the optimal infrastructure for your Education or Healthcare organization. And once the funding is available, we will make the applicable hardware order, track it, install it and provide documentation for reference.
We are all in this fight together. Let’s work together to help one another out during these times of need.
E-Rate – “Free Money” from the Government for Education Customer Networks!
As a “go-to” E-rate services provider for our valued networking partners, Aruba Networks and Extreme Networks, we have discovered that many hundreds of millions of unspent “E-Rate” monies are still available to customers in the Rocky Mountain Region. This includes K-12 education as well as many libraries, and some child development (pre-K) centers. E-Rate is a great way to refresh aging networking equipment in all or part of your organization and have a large portion of the costs paid for by the US government. Below are some frequently asked questions we wanted to share and answer. We find that many smaller entities may not be aware of this program or the fact that they have “money to spend”. Zunesis can help them design and implement E-rate compliant, modern, and rugged internal network connection (wired and wireless) infrastructures.
What is E-Rate?
The Universal Service Schools and Libraries Program – commonly known as the E-rate program – provides discounts on telecom, internet access, and internal connections to eligible schools and libraries. E-rate is funded through the Universal Service Fund (USF). You will see a small fee at the end of each of your land line or wireless service phone bill. This small fee is collected to help fund this program along with additional federal funding. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) writes the rules and standards for this program. The administrator of the E-rate program is the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC).
Have you received your E-rate funding and how is funding determined?
Did you know that all applicants who submitted an eligible and timely E-rate application in 2015 through 2019 will receive their funding? Many schools have yet to take advantage of the over $4 billion dollars in available E-rate funding. For K-12/charter schools, E-rate discounts range from 20% to 90% of eligible project costs. Discounts are district wide, and an applicant’s discount rate is determined by the percentage of students that qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch.
How do I choose a Service Provider?
A service provider like Zunesis needs to be selected as part of a specific and regimented bidding process. E-rate applicants must conduct a fair and open competitive bidding process. All applicants must select the most cost-effective service provider. The price of the eligible products and services must be the most heavily weighed bid evaluation factor. Although other factors such as local presence to the state/community, service provider expertise on the proposed product, and ability to provide a complete solution (including implementation) may be other important weighing factors.
Why apply for E-Rate funding this year?
There has never been a better time to apply for E-rate funding. Because of the increased funding cap, available roll-over funds, and remaining Category Two (aka. “Internal Connections” such as wired switches and wireless access points) maximum budget funds, it is likely that there will be enough funding to support the entire demand in the current fiscal year as well. Also, applicants that seek E-rate funding this year will not have to compete for dollars against the applicants that will have their Category Two budgets refresh in future fiscal years (2020 and beyond).
How do I apply for E-Rate funding?
To apply for E-rate funding, simply follow the 6-step process outlined in Figure 1 below:
How do I determine if product is E-rate eligible?
It’s important to note that not all networking solutions are E-rate eligible. For example, you can find eligibility of Aruba products using their E-rate Eligibility Lookup Tool.
The following table highlights products that are eligible under the current E-rate program from Aruba Networks as a for-instance.
How can Zunesis help?
Zunesis believes in working with our E-rate eligible clients well prior to “step 1” of the above chart to help educate the customer on some of the best available options for their particular environments. As not all customer needs are the same, we feel it is always best to have a face to face meeting to walk through example environments, discuss customer needs, and provide valuable input into the Competitive Bid process. Please contact your Zunesis account manager to setup your E-Rate readiness review today!
Additional Resources
Aruba Networking Education Solutions
Over $500 Million Pledged to Computer Science Education
A recent article from staff reporter, Emily Tate at the Scoop News Group, announced that Computer Science has picked up a concerted cross-sector support with the Trump administration and a slew of private sector companies collectively committing more than half a billion dollars to K-12 and post-secondary STEM programs.
President Donald Trump signed a memorandum directing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to prioritize high-quality STEM education- and in particular, computer science- within her department. She was instructed to spend at least $200 million per year in existing grant funds on that priority.
The directive, which also asks DeVos to explore other ways the administration can support computer science education, will not establish a new grant program or draw from new funds. Instead, STEM initiatives will warrant extra consideration as the Education Department chooses where to allocate existing grant money.
In announcing the directive, the White House emphasized the growing role of technology in the economy, saying that “Technical knowledge and skills are more important than ever.”
More than half of American schools – about 60 percent – do not offer computer science courses today, according to Code.org, but the demand for trained computer programmers and computer science graduates continues to climb. Seventy-one percent of all new jobs in STEM are in computing, yet only 8 percent of STEM graduates have computer science backgrounds.
“Greater access to STEM and computer science programs will ensure that our children can develop the skills they need to compete and to win in the workforce of tomorrow. ”
– President Trump
Following the president’s lead, nearly a dozen private-sector companies together pledged more than $300 million to K-12 computer science programs at an event in Detroit with Ivanka Trump, who released a video on Twitter extolling the White House’s effort and calling it “enormously important.”
Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce each earmarked $50 million. Lockheed Martin, whose CEO was in Detroit for the event, pledged $25 million. Accenture, General Motors and Pluralsight offered $10 million or more each. Other businesses, individual and foundations dedicated funds as well.
“This money prioritizes and shines a light on computer science as a need,” said Dave Frye, Associate Director of the Friday Institute, an education resource center based out of North Carolina State University’s College of Education. “Even within STEM, computer science needs some attention. It doesn’t have the presence in schools other than STEM curricula have.”
Other organizations, including the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), applauded Trump’s directive but questioned why the administration didn’t show that same support for STEM in its suggested budget, which proposed cutting $9 billion from the education department and would have affected key educational technology programs. “CoSN appreciates the Administration’s focus on STEM education and computer science. We hope the directive now signals a serious commitment from the Administration to educational technology investments, and in particular, the Student Support and Academic Enrichment grant program,” Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN, said in statement. “Full funding of the program would help equip all students and schools with the resources they need to excel in modern learning settings.”
