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Omaha Public Schools is preparing to debut it's biggest software upgrade in more than a decade.

A new partnership with Microsoft means 51,000 students and roughly 9,000 staff across more than 80 buildings will use Office 365, and move digital storage from in-house servers to space on Microsoft's cloud.

"It's a challenge but I think it's a great challenge," said OPS Executive Director of Information Management Systems Rob Dickson. He helped coordinate training for dozens of staff members Wednesday at OPS' Teacher Administrative Center.

"It's a huge shift," explained Anthony Clark-Kaczmarek, one of the staff members attending training, praising the new opportunities offered by the software upgrade. "It allows us to have more storage than we've ever been able to before, it allows us to communicate in ways that we haven't been able to communicate before," Clark-Kaczmarek continued.

Dickson says the partnership with Microsoft will cost OPS roughly $300,000 each year. Dickson adds that is less money than the district currently spends on software licensing and server upkeep. As part of the agreement with Microsoft, OPS is subscribing to the software for all staff members and students, instead of licensing software for each individual device.

Also included in the agreement are free downloads of Office 365 for OPS staff and student families. For information on how to access that software, follow this link.

Dickson says the new software will go live on Monday. It will not affect email addresses.

Read more here:
OPS agreement offers free "Office" software for families