Several school district officials have told us they want to embrace our philosophy of empowering students and teachers through technology innovation, but lack the right infrastructure to support this vision. After our district completed a three-year, district-wide technology refresh cycle, we wanted to share our top takeaways to help our peers get more educational benefits from your network infrastructure.
Lesson #1: Organizational structure matters
Like many districts, in the past our IT department delivered products and services as a separate entity from our curriculum and instructional development staff. Now we’re all organized under the same leadership and our joint team is headed by a chief learning officer.
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This reorganization resulted in a strategic shift to giving our curriculum staff the voice that drives our services. In other words, they provide the curricular vision and then we meet their expectations by delivering the right technology. Having a strong and collaborative relationship is critical for determining the infrastructure our district needs for the personalized learning and user experiences that support our district’s mission: “Every student enters with a promise and exits with a purpose.”
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The eSchool News IT Solutions: Hardware and Management Guide is here! It features strategies to help K-12 IT leaders work with school administrators and teachers to prioritize IT solutions that support innovative digital learning in classrooms. A new eSchool News Guide will launch each month–don’t miss a single one!
About the Author:
Chris Cummings is the IT director at Klein Independent School District (ISD) in the greater Houston community of Klein, Texas, with more than 20 years of experience in technology and education, including various leadership roles. Cummings also serves as a volunteer firefighter.
Brett Williams is a system engineer at Layer 3 Communications. He is the former assistant manager network infrastructure at Klein ISD in Klein, Texas, with nearly a decade at the district in various IT roles.
