LACA (Licking Area Computer Association) is a non-profit K-12 consortium, owned and operated by 19 member school districts in Licking, Muskingum, Knox, Fairfield, and Perry counties, though we provide a portion of our services to schools all across the State of Ohio. LACA has been in existence since October 1, 1982, and has always been located here in Newark, Ohio. LACA is one of 18 regional ITCs, or Information Technology Centers, providing services to school districts in their own regions of Ohio.
The services LACA provides to our member schools have evolved dramatically over our 30+ year history, as the needs of K-12 education has changed. LACA’s original mission was to provide payroll and accounting software to school treasurers. Student administrative software for grade cards, attendance, scheduling, and discipline was added a few years later, along with email. At this point, everything was mainframe-based and ran on text-based terminals.
In 1994, LACA began building a more modern IP-based network out to the schools as the Internet began to make its way into our daily lives. As this network became larger, and bandwidth speeds increased, the services provided by LACA also increased. Today, the services provided include Internet access, email, accounting and payroll, teacher gradebooks, student administrative software, special education software, EMIS reporting, library resources, video distance learning, hosted servers, offsite backup services, wireless, IP telephones, and IP security cameras.
LACA currently has a staff of 17 employees to support all of these services. Our staff have backgrounds in many diverse areas, including Business, Technology and Education. A strong background working with computers and technology is definitely necessary for a career at LACA, but we pride ourselves just as much, if not more, on our strong customer service skills. Our employees are encouraged to adapt and innovate to provide the best services and solutions to our member schools.
LACA is a member of the MCOECN, a state-wide consortium of ITCs.