The Springfield Ball Charter School is unique in both its network configuration and governing policies.  Although closely associated in many ways to District 186 (CIty of Springfield), the charter school is considered independent of the District and as such pays the Distritct directly for network services. Networking resources tie into District 186-- the Charter school uses the District's DNS, internet access and email server.

Each classroom at the Charter school is connected to the internet through a local area network (LAN). All individual classrooms, including the two upper primary rooms housed in mobiles,  access the network using NetWare 4.O/Novell. The onsite email and web server is located in the  conference room and is in a locked case. The technology coordinator has a key and an extra copy is stored in the office. Individual classrooms have 10mbps of bandwith. The local connections are not "daisy chained" so if one classroom's connection goes "down," the rest of the classrooms are generally unaffected.

There are several Ethernet jacks in each classrom. Individual computers are connected to a hub so that only one Ethernet jack per room is currently being used. The network gateway connects the Charter school to District 186 via a fiber optic LAN. The District DNS then connects the Charter school network to the Internet over T-1 lines. The firewall is also part of the District infrastructure and is located off the Charter school campus.

The six lower primary classrooms (grades K-2) are provided one PC that is connected to the local network and the Internet. In addition, these rooms have 3 PCs that are dedicated to a networked reading program (The Waterford Program). These machines are also Internet ready. Two of the lower primary classrooms also have additional PCs that are used strictly for running local software. The two upper primary classrooms (grades 3-4) each have four Internet connected PCs. Next year, two additional mobiles will be used to house two more upper primary classrooms, each of which will have 4 Internet connected PCs. As the school grows over the next four years, plan are to provide equipment and connections similar to those currently in place.

The local networking resources include shared: installation programs, printers, ghost imaging, and Internet/email access.

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