Hello. You’re listening to the K-12 tech podcast, bringing you insights into the world of education technology. Stay tuned as we discuss the past, the present, and most importantly, the future of technology in our schools.
Can you elaborate on some of the accomplishments that you had mentioned, like Connect Me and then next-level funding, and then how they fit into your broader vision for digital equality?
Ever heard of a BHAG?
Yes?
Big, hairy, audacious goal? That’s a really gross name. But, you know, one of my goals that I may or may not be able to obtain in my career is to see that Posey County students have good, reliable access to the Internet. And that is a beast. That is a big challenge. And you’ve really got to work on that challenge locally, regionally, and nationally. And I’ve done that in a lot well before COVID, during COVID, and after COVID locally and during COVID, we were able to secure some funds from the gear grant that allowed us to purchase Wi-Fi hotspots from all three of the providers in our area Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.
And we were able to provide access at home to anybody that needed it, you didn’t we didn’t have you didn’t have to prove that you didn’t have the Internet or anything like that. Like, if you need one, we’re going to get you one. And we used all three carriers because in our rural county it’s widespread. And Verizon may work great here, but not over here. So you’re going to get an AT&T hotspot if you live over there. That program ran for a couple of years. It was highly successful, you know, not only students but also any staff member that needed access to the Internet. To me, I believe it’s a utility, just like water and electricity. It’s a basic human right. I believe in my mind. And fortunately, the hotspot program is more of a Band-Aid.
Yeah, we were just trying to get to a point where, you know, actual fiber could be run to the homes in Posey County. And those efforts were also underway. And the next level of funding is some of the grant money that’s being used right now to kind of build a ring, a fiber ring around the county that will eventually, at some point provide more access to more homes, impose a county.
And that was not just an effort on my part, but I was part of a group of the county broadband test force that, you know, worked closely with the economic development group to bring those funds and eventually bring the access to students homes in Posey County. So there’s that. And then on the national level, I’m glad you had Chantell on here.
And I just got back from Washington, D.C. earlier in the year where we went to Capitol Hill and we talked to our representatives about not just Internet access but other EdTech concerns and cybersecurity being one of those. And so really working on the national level as well. So with all of those things, you know, it’s slow, but I do believe we will get there in my lifetime. I really believe that in Posey County and then obviously all of Indiana, we’ve got to get that connectivity out to the folks.
Yeah. And your transition right, beginning your career computers are just starting to be implemented to now it’s in every fabric of of of education you’re obviously you’re going from I’m sure your technology budget each year has 50 XT from when you started there what are some pitfalls or what are some costs that schools are not you see as a schools are not preparing for or maybe since COVID just something schools need to be preparing for on the fund side?
Well, I would say, you know, when you are looking at putting in something new, you’ve always got to look at sustainability. I think there’s a natural inclination to look at this, the initial cost of something. But you really got to look at the total cost of ownership over time and be able to budget for that. For example, just putting your device rotation, putting your devices on a rotation, and having that in the budget every year.
So like for us, we replace, I believe it’s first-grade, fifth-grade, and ninth-grade Chromebooks every year. And you know, we’ve got the money in the bank to do that. So really looking at the sustainability and, you know, if you’re going to buy a piece of software, okay, this is how much it’s going to cost, but what’s it going to cost in a year or two or three or four?
Yeah.
So doing some smart budgeting, I would say is very important. And you know, when you do sign contracts, I always look at the exit clause. I know many folks will decide they want to change to a different program. But if you don’t notify them within 30 days before, you know, exiting the contract, then you’re on the hook for another year or so. Yeah. So there’s little tidbits that I’ve picked up over the years, you know, my own failures.
Well, yeah, I just think that’s, you know, you know, typically tech directors, either they come from the tech or the education world, they haven’t come from the finance world. And that’s one thing that’s been talked about on this podcast before, is learning and learning how to manage your budget. And then prepare. And that’s just another thing like you have to keep that threshold open to be able to prepare for that because you have cybersecurity worries about you having all these other areas, but the financial side, staying on top of that is extremely important.
Um, so you’ve mentioned that you know, you’re a collaborator with a lot of these different organizations and, and you’ve built your and you’ve built like a good team. Can you share some things that you’ve done in building your team and collaborating where you were, where you try to add value?
With my tech team, I would say, you know, until the last five or six years I ran my technology team just like a typical manager would. I personally hired everyone, and I personally evaluated everyone in my staff, and I would say that, you know, our staff over the years, we’ve had, you know, some really good staff members and some folks that struggled.
Yeah.
And I would say during COVID, I decided to make some changes as far as how I did things. The superintendent had us do a book study on a book called The Program, That’s a military-type book that talks about building the best team. And in that book, they talked about developing core values with your team and using those values to really dictate everything you do from hiring evaluations and just everyday practice.
So, with my current team, we went through a core value exercise, and we developed three core values: opportunity, commitment, and integrity. And we use these in our hiring practice. In fact, I don’t hire the people personally anymore. I was brought in by the people I trust my executive, my database manager, my network manager, my system manager, my secretary, you know, people I trust. And we’re the ones that evaluate the candidates. So it’s not just me because, you know, I need to hear diverse opinions on things, and these are the people I trust. So I would not have them in the room.
So, with these core values, what we do now with our interviewees is we do not even worry about their qualifications. We don’t even talk about them during the first interview. Our job during the first interview is to see if their values match our values because if their values don’t match our values, they’re not going to have a good experience here, and neither are we. And that’s the mistake I was making over the years, if I wasn’t, I was more concerned with their technical qualifications than whether they were going to be a good fit into this department.
Well, once we did that, I noticed, like, okay, if we were doing this the old way, I would not have hired this person. It happened on three occasions where we hired the less qualified person because they were going to be a better fit. And these three folks are just rock stars. So it really transformed the culture in our department, and really, those core values just give everyone a shared vision of what we’re about and what we’re doing. You know, opportunity, you know, everything we do opens up opportunities for students, for teachers, and then opportunity for our techs. I want to provide them opportunities to learn to grow.
Maybe sometimes they leave us or maybe sometimes they don’t. But if they need training, I’m going to get that training for them. So there are opportunities and then commitment.
You know, our number one job, and I’ve been saying this for years, our number one job is to support the classroom teacher. That’s our number one job. You know, every decision you make if you work in my department is good for the classroom teacher? Now, I can get a little little hairy. When you’re talking about cybersecurity. And you and I talked about that a little bit earlier, kind of balancing cyber security, you know, concerns with what teachers need to do.
So there is some flexibility that’s needed. So commitment and then, you know, integrity. We deal with a lot of confidential information. You know, you can imagine over the years, investigations have been a part of this being confidential in everything you do.
So I think integrity is something that our department runs on as well.
Yeah one of the things you mentioned in this is 360 evaluations and transparent communication and specifically said transparent. I love that. I think that is very overlooked, you know, via Slack and in your department.
Can you talk a little bit about what that transparency means and then what those evaluations are and how you’re doing those?
Yeah. So transparency in communication, and I would say it’s twofold. I’d say when there are problems that need to be taken care of is very important that you take care of them when they happen rather than letting things fester.
Yeah, what’s the saying? Problems don’t get better with age, right?
Yeah, that’s just wine, I think. You know, you don’t want to wait till an evaluation to tell someone that they’re doing something wrong. They should already know. When you sit down in the evaluation, they should already know what they need to be working on, if there’s anything they need to be working on. So yeah, transparent communication then with Slack, you know, I learned a lot about my employees during the quarantine lockdown when we were all under houses supporting teachers and students implemented. We were all used to working in the same room like.
So if I needed to talk to Joe, I don’t have a job. But if I had a Joe, I would be able to just yell over there, and we talk, but we can’t do that anymore. We’re spread out in our houses. So we implemented Slack, which is just a chat business chat program, and some of my more introverted employees. I’ve thrived on that platform.
In fact, I got to know them. I really didn’t know them because interpersonal communication, in-person communication is not something they liked, so using Slack, I was able to form close relationships with some of my employees. And we still use it today because we’re still spread out now. You know, folks are out and working out in the building. So having that open chat program really, really transformed what we’re what we’re doing and how we do it.
Yeah, I love that. I think transparency, too, that’s something like us as a company. It’s like, you know, people who try to send one email to one person, you know, it’s like, no, you need to make sure everybody understands what’s going on and like, you know, not letting anything kind of be hidden or under the surface. And then how often are you doing your evaluations? Is that a weekly, monthly, quarterly?
Yeah. We try to meet two or three times a year. Usually, it ends up to, and the evaluations are set up in two different phases. There’s a conversation piece, you know, and this is where I really want to know more about what the hopes and dreams of my employees are.I want to know where do you want to be in five years and can I help you get there? Well, I’ve got some employees that have some very high ceilings, and I want to help them get there. My job is to help them grow.
Yeah, And like I said, sometimes that means they’re going to leave us. But what I keep hearing is, like, I like working here.I want to stay here because we’ve got a solid team, and then our leadership above us is outstanding. Our superintendent is amazing. So, the conversation piece is important. And then the 360 valuation is something we’re currently implementing, and that is a kind of feedback database.
So normally it would be good to get feedback from your tech customers and the customers or the teachers, right? So let’s get some feedback from them on how they feel like things are going. That’s good, right? So that’s normal. But then let’s also get feedback from the middle, like from other techs, the other employees that work around them.
Yeah.
And these are all just done through surveys that we’re still developing. And then obviously I’m going to be able to provide feedback on the employee from above.And then the final piece of that to kind of make the 360 round is that, you know, let’s give the employee a chance to provide feedback on me.
So just being able to collect that information and use it for the conversation I think is just a very powerful way to see the whole person.
So yeah, I think that regular feedback is important, and I, you know, I spent quite a bit of time in the military, and we did monthly counseling and stuff. I think the problem is when it seems like, oh, I got canceled, it’s like a bad thing. Like that’s a stigma around it, and it’s like, but we counsel on good and bad, like, Hey, these are the good things you do this month.
These are the things you need to improve on. And we’ve just found that the good employees really, really like that and the bad employees really don’t like that. I think having and what that does is it gets the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus. And by, like I like that 362 where you’re kind of getting multiple points when you’re getting feedback from your technicians or your department.
Is that anonymous typically or is that like this person said this about you? Because we had to do it anonymously when it’s going up.
Sure. Sure. I would say I would say it’s strictly anonymous.
Yeah.
Unless there’s an issue that we need to take care of, we need to talk about. Yeah, but for the most cases, the feedback would be anonymous.
Yeah. And I think, you know, the reason I wanted to bring that up is, you know, any tech directors out there that are listening, it’s like, oh, like some people don’t want to hear it specifically, but it’s like more of the people giving you feedback, giving if they know that it’s their name attached to it, it’s they’re probably going to softball it to you.
Absolutely. Like when the employee is going to provide feedback on me, you know, you know, it’s going to be maybe not the whole truth, but I like I feel like my employees, and this is the best team I’ve ever had in my career. I feel like they trust me enough to tell me the truth. Yeah, they will tell me when something’s not working. You know, one of my big things with our new ticketing system is that implemented with Slack, You know, like, tickets could get entered by a customer or a teacher, and then that could appear in a Slack channel. And that’s really the whole reason I picked that ticketing system.
Well, once we implemented it, and it’s great, it’s called Fresh Works, we put the slack connection in there, and they just didn’t like it. They were getting too many. Not if they’re getting a notification in their email that there’s a ticket assigned to them, and now it’s in the Slack channel. It’s just too much. Okay, So yeah, we don’t do that. But they felt comfortable enough to tell me that this is not going to work, and I appreciate that.
Yeah, that’s important to you because you don’t want people to be unhappy working under some sort of process. It’s good to get that feedback right away, too. So yeah, that’s really good. So being a tech director, hours are a lot of times uneven.
What do you do personally, um, in your personal life to recharge and to stay on balance? And what do you like to do with your free time?
Well, I really enjoy Indiana basketball. I bought season tickets last year for the first time. I didn’t think that was anything I would ever be able to do. I thought that was just for, like, millionaires.
Are you saying IU basketball or Pacer?
IU Indiana University basketball. Just been a fanatic my whole life, so I do that. I have three kids hanging out with them, and Amy, my wife, and we have a pool. You know, we sit by the pool, uh, and recharge that way. I like going for walks and running, and, you know, I would say, you know, to anyone out there that may get burned out, you’ve really got to take care of yourself first, you know, because when you’re gone, you’re gone, and your health is very important.
And so just, you know, it’s constant. I don’t know what to say, battle, but a challenge, you know, as you get older, you get to exercise, eat right, and take care of yourself.
Yeah, Yeah. I love that. You know, kind of closing out the podcast. The point of this is to help people who might want to become directors in different positions where there may be a teacher or someone who’s in a tech department.
What, what advice would you give them on maybe a focus and then ways that they can be bettering themselves, um, in ways they can start working towards that goal?
I would say one piece of advice that I wish I’d known is, you know, early on is don’t try to be something you’re not, you know, the tech director role. You’re in it because you’re a problem solver.
Yeah.
And people like problem solvers. In fact, you will get pulled into things that have nothing to do with technology. My superintendent has me doing marketing, and it’s not because he thinks I’m a marketing genius. He knows I’m a good problem solver. You know, marketing is a problem we’re trying to solve, and he recognizes that. So, um, but these are, these are examples of me doing things that I am comfortable with.
But, you know, if you’re a techie type person, you should not be touching any type of curriculum or making any decisions on teaching practices. And sometimes, I got thrown into that. I didn’t feel comfortable there. Yeah, but no one else was doing anything. So I would say, you know, stay in your lane if you can unless your boss tells you not to. And try not to be something you’re not. Because I don’t know what it’s like to teach, you know, I mean, I’ve done it a couple times. It’s exhausting. But that is not something that I need to have my hands on.
But I can tell you if a program’s going to be compatible with what we’re doing, that’s what we have. I can make sure they have tech support. I can make sure that they have a rostering capability with clever. I can do those things, but I’m not going to tell you that that’s good for kids because that’s not my thing.
Yeah, that’s one characteristic I’ve seen of the great tech directors is like, are you good at solving problems because nothing in the book isn’t written and published for what technology is currently in every single school or will be. So that’s a characteristic I would say if you’re not a good problem solver, uh, need to start solving more problems on your own.
Maybe next time your sink isn’t working. All right. Figure out how to fix it, because that’s a that’s definitely characteristic of mine is, you know, I don’t know how to do it. I started out my business. I started out when a friend of mine came to me and said, my screen broke on my iPhone. You seem like you can figure it out. And I did and went horribly. I had to pay somebody else to do it, but I saw that person do that, and I’m like, I can teach myself how to do that. I can figure that out.
And just through that. And that characteristic is the same thing. When you run a business, it’s like you got to be a problem solver. Otherwise, you have to pay people who you can’t afford to solve those problems for you. But I love that. Are there any last thoughts that you want to share, just maybe about your career or for those who are going in this field? You know, just about like your time and some focus?
Hmm. Well, I would say if you think you have imposter syndrome, work on that. Hmm. That’s something I’ve struggled with for a while. But I look back on my career, and I’m like, I’ve done some amazing things, but I never had that feeling like I deserved all this. Yeah, I guess my advice to them is you do deserve it.
Take it on and be proud of it. Yeah, because the work here we do in schools is important work. It’s good work, and it’s public service, and that should be commended.
Yeah, I love that. Bill, thank you so much for being on the podcast, and I’m excited to see what you do with the rest of your career and those goals you have. I hope they hope they will come to fruition before the end of your career.
Thank you for having me.
Awesome. Thanks, Bill.
Thanks.
In Episode 33, Hope Davis, MA, CHC takes us on a journey from personal challenges to leading educational innovation at Teach Tech U. Discover how her experiences fueled a passion for transformative technology in education, shaping the future with Project LEAR. An inspiring conversation for anyone intrigued by the power of tech to change lives. […]
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