1. Be as qualified as you can be: Earn a certification in edtech leadership and take advantage of opportunities for ongoing education to burnish credentials. “I tell women aspiring to IT leadership to not give anything up, don’t leave anything up for debate, don’t leave anything up to chance,” says Jackson, a longtime former K-12 CIO who is now an edtech leadership coach. Aspiring edtech leaders now have more options with the growing availability of online professional development programs.
2. Establish a life-work balance: Women IT leaders, particularly those with younger children and families, can set boundaries while also fulfilling the duties of a demanding job—which means they may miss out on some family time. Women are sometimes reluctant to mention family responsibilities for fear of falling behind their male colleagues but that can also lead to overwork and burnout, Jackson warns. “Be very clear about what you need to be successful,” Jackson advises. “When you value work-life balance, there’s a certain element of respect that comes with that.”
3. It takes confidence: Speak out about your needs while taking care of all the things you can control, such as your proficiency and level of education.”If you want to be in a high-level position, there will be some concessions that need to be made,” Jackson says. “Do whatever it takes to find a good support system.”

Jackson will provide more details during one of her presentations at the 2023 Future of Education Technology® Conference in New Orleans in January: “Developing Women in K-12 Information Technology Leadership Positions.”

Also critical for women in edtech leadership are the so-called “soft skills,” such as relationship building and communications, that Jackson believes come more naturally to women. “Accept the fact you’re a female, that you’re moving in an upward progression of a career, so be very clear about what you need to be successful,” Jackson concludes.

The Future of Education Technology® Conference, which takes place live and in person Jan. 23-26, 2023, in New Orleans, offers several other presentations on ed-tech leadership:

KEYNOTE SPEECH—The Tech Landscape and Cultivating Leaders of the Future: British mathematician and technologist Anne-Marie Imafidon links the skills shortages in the booming tech industry with the “criminally low proportion” of women who are entering and staying in math and computer science careers. Imafidon will dissect the HERstory of the technology industry to show how inclusion in a tech-driven world can impact the persistent bias in data collection and algorithms that influence major decisions in our lives.

Trust Black Women in EdTech: Update: Elevating the expertise of IT employees of color—especially Black women—is key to ensuring that educational technology is inclusive and equitable. The discussion will cover how equity work in the areas of recruitment, retention, and celebration can bring Black women to the forefront of education and educational technology. Presenter: Victoria Thompson, education industry executive at Microsoft Education.

Building School-Based Technology Leadership: The instructional technology coaches in Prince William County Schools will detail their process for recruiting and developing instructional technology leaders and building a collaborative team through communication strategies, protocols and professional learning. Presenters: Dani Hall and Gail Charnick.

More from DA: 3 tips to help teachers boost creativity in their classrooms 

The post 3 key pieces of advice for women who aspire to edtech leadership appeared first on District Administration.

The role of technology in education has forever changed because of the pandemic. IT is now an integral component of how teachers teach and students learn. With this new role comes new leadership challenges as IT departments transform their processes, procedures, and support models.

As IT leaders grapple with these challenges, there is often one leadership practice that is often overlooked or not well understood: expectation management. Neglecting to set and manage clear expectations has the potential to undermine the behavior, actions and results within a team, but it can also negatively impact engagement, relationships and teamwork. In this three-part series I will break down expectations, how to effectively manage them and what three key expectations K-12 leaders should focus on.

I have spoken many times on this topic and find it interesting that when I ask people if they understand expectation management, most say yes. When I dig a little deeper and ask them to define expectation management, I often receive varying responses, most of them vague and often don’t hit the core definition. So, let’s break this down to the basics. An expectation is a belief about what will happen in the future. Those beliefs are what guide our behaviors. Take a moment to think about this. If our beliefs about the future guide our behaviors, it isn’t hard to understand why a lack of them can be so disruptive.

If we reflect on the past and the disruption the pandemic caused, we must have an appreciation and understanding of three organizational realities:

1. Current state. Do you as a leader understand at a strategic level the current state of your organization from a people, process, and technology perspective? Without this understanding, it will be very difficult to establish realistic and accepted expectations.
2. Organizational fatigue. There is no doubt we are all dealing with it. If we don’t account for this reality and make appropriate adjustments, the changes we want to implement will fail.
3. Organizational capacity. If, as leaders, we understand the current state and have accounted for organizational fatigue, we will be much more realistic about the number of changes we want to make as the new school year unfolds. If we don’t consider the current state and organizational fatigue, the likelihood of trying to do much and exceeding the capacity of the organization increases significantly.

Related: 3 ways school leaders and edtech partners can close learning gaps together

This brings us to another key element when understanding expectations: the three stages of change.

Current state

This state is like that old pair of slippers or your favorite T-shirt. It is comfortable and well understood, but most importantly, it is familiar. For employees, current state is how they have been successful and shown their value to the organization. For example, the way a teacher has taught students in their classroom, or the way our teams have provided support for staff onsite.

Transition state

This state is chaotic, disorganized, and frequently changing. It’s a very emotional state for employees who are full of fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, and confusion. Now, I want you to think about the emotional elements identified that are related to the transition state. At any given time, your employees could be experiencing these same emotions in their personal lives. As a leader, you must embrace the fact that in our current environment there are many additional factors that can impact your employees’ emotional state other than what needs to get done at work. The Transition state is where we are today, and it is where we have been since the pandemic first impacted our school systems.

Future state

This state is what your employees have been told the future will look like. It is supposed to be improved and where promises of better days occur. The future state and what your employees envision is completely dependent on what the messaging around this new frontier has been, who is delivering this message, and how consistent, honest and timely it has been. For your employees, the future state is also very personal. Everyone will be thinking about the future state and deciding if it is where he or she wants to be personally and/or professionally. It is these internal conversations that will cause the most apprehension. The future state is unknown, and we all must accept that fact.

Related: Edtech overload? Survey finds state education leaders could do more to help

As you can see, setting expectations is more than just stating what you want to happen. As leaders, we must pause and endeavor to understand the three organizational realities. We must also embrace the psychological aspects of how our employees behave and the resulting actions they will take. Remember, expectations are beliefs about the future and our beliefs are what guide behavior. We have been and continue to be in the Transition state, which is chaotic and uncertain. Our organizations are at capacity as well as fatigued, and your team needs to see a light at the end of the Transition tunnel. As a leader, are you defining the Future State?

In part II of this series, we will outline how as a leader you can effectively manage expectations.

More from DA

The post Expectation management for IT leaders: Defining what, and when, to expect after COVID appeared first on District Administration.

Getting districts back to business requires collaborating with everyone from curriculum departments to operations to security, says chief information technology Officer Kenneth Thompson of San Antonio ISD. “We’re working cross-functionally to assure the instructional program aligns with the tools we’re rolling out,” Thompson says. “You have to have the same vision and the same drive–if you don’t, you’re going in three different directions.”

Here’s a look at four IT and ed-tech leaders who are at the center of their districts’ efforts to equip students and staff with the tools they need to succeed.

‘We are thinking of everything’

Kenneth J. Thompson, Chief Information Technology Officer, San Antonio ISD

ESSER funding is turbo-charing the spending power of San Antonio ISD’s $1.4 billion bond measure, which was passed in 2020. The twin funding streams have launched a 1-to-1 program along with a plan to sustain network infrastructure and the distribution of devices to students for the next four to five years, Thompson says.

ESSER funding has so far been solely dedicated to iPads and Chromebooks. Now, Thompson is seeking approval to use ESSER funds to build out a district-owned LTE network to bring the internet to more students’ homes. Still, there are some financial hurdles ahead for San Antonio ISD and many other districts that are now facing state budget cuts around the country. “It’s going to be tight,” Thompson says. “If it wasn’t for the bond dollars, we’d be in a bad place with ESSER running out.”

The district provides students with devices for free, but after having gone 1-to-1, Thompson is looking to impose a small maintenance fee to cover lost power cords and repairs. Right now, about 100 devices come in for some type of repair each week. He’s also concerned about having adequate funds to continue purchasing those power chords and other peripherals long-term.

The 1-to-1 initiative has also forced Thompson to update his department’s inventory procedures. He and his team will conduct some practice inventory exercises this summer to keep track of all devices, particularly when students leave the district. IT leaders are also facing pressure to further upgrade security systems in the wake of the shooting in Uvalde, which is just about 80 miles from San Antonio. Prior to Uvalde, Thompson and his team were using the district’s bond funds to install more security cameras and fortify its visitor management system to perform instant criminal background checks on visitors.

The work requires close collaboration between his department and operations and security personnel. “We are thinking of everything,” Thompson says about security. “We have a good collection of minds coming together to make our schools safe.”

No longer an afterthought

Raj Adusumilli, Assistant Superintendent for Information Services, and Amy Jackson, Supervisor of Educational Technology, Arlington Public Schools (Va.)

Amy Jackson and Raj Adusumilli want to keep their two departments working and training together to fully merge the hardware with teaching and learning. Emerging from COVID, Jackson, whose department is under the chief academic officer, says her focus is on resetting ed-tech’s role in Arlington’s classrooms and establishing blended learning as a regular part of instruction.

That includes a recommitment to teaching students digital citizenship skills after the long periods of virtual instruction. There will also be a renewed focus on instructional coaching for teachers in online learning, including getting staff certified as experts in the ed-tech products used by the district. “At home for two years, students have had to navigate technology by themselves,” she says. “We’re making sure there are equitable digital and tech resources and that we’re learning from the pandemic so we can be ahead of the curve.”

On the IT side, the goal is to advance the twin priorities of teaching and learning and safety and security, Adusumilli says. Looking back through the pandemic, he says he is proud of his department’s ability to provide connectivity and identify students who needed assistance.

Early in the pandemic, about 87% of the district’s students had participated online in remote learning. His team worked hard and got most of the remaining 13% engaged. “That’s a very good example of the success of putting all our forces on deck together to look at the same problem and resolve it,” he says.

One of the big projects ahead is strengthening the district’s cybersecurity, considering most school systems don’t have the same amount of personnel to devote to the task as do private-sector companies. Post-COVID, the demand for IT services and resources has skyrocketed. “To sustain that with existing personal and resources is a challenge,” he says. “IT needs to be engaged early in the conversation and have the opportunity to understand the needs and thought processes rather than being an afterthought.”

Time to use our new tech skills

Don Wolff, Chief Technology Officer, Portland Public Schools (Ore.)

Portland Public Schools in Oregon also covered initial COVID tech expenses–including devices and connectivity–with a $1.2 billion bond passed in November 2020. This infusion of funds allowed the district to launch its first 1-to-1 program, which administrators had to do in a hurry during lockdown, Wolff says.

“The pandemic didn’t give us a long time to get teachers up to speed and pilot some programs,” he says. “There have been bumps and bruises and lots of lessons learned and we will be planning very intentionally to reconstitute what 1-to-1 looks like this coming fall.”

The bond will also support the district’s first major curriculum adoption in 20 years–and teachers and instructional coaches will play a key role in determining the bests use of technology to “enhance and extend” classroom instruction. “Teachers have gotten a lot of PD out of what we’ve been through the last few years,” Wolff says “Hopefully, the upcoming school year will allow teachers to breathe and utilize skills they have learned.”

More from DA: 3.65 billion reasons why ransomware is a costly threat to school IT systems 

The district has also used local grant funds to put instructional tech coaches in place and to upgrade hardware and network infrastructure in its Title I schools.

But if an IT department is not preparing for the ESSER fiscal cliff by partnering with academic and financial leaders, that district risks taking a hard financial fall, says Wolff, who has been working with Portland’s chief financial officer and other academic leaders to determine how to sustain initiatives launched during and prior to the pandemic. And collaboration only works if all administrators “open up their sphere of influence” and share data. The district’s leaders are exploring new funding streams because even with ESSER and the bond funds, Portland Public Schools will have to adjust when COVID relief expires–unless the federal government provides new rounds of funding.

“Districts that aren’t looking three to five years ahead are going to get caught when the funding stream goes away,” Wolff says. “We are having those conversations now about what’s going to be affected by this cliff and how do we start mitigating now instead of later.”

More federal assistance is essential because schools have taken on social services such as health care, summertime nutrition, daycare and preschool. “The cliff is rushing at us,” Wolff says. “We’re lobbying folks at the state and national level to figure out how funding can be extended in the manner public K-12’s deserve–the layers of student support offloaded to schools has only gotten deeper and wider.”

The post 4 ed-tech leaders to watch: They’re getting districts back to business appeared first on District Administration.