ATLIS created the Technology Leaders in Independent Schools (TLIS) certification to ensure that people serving in such roles are fully equipped to fulfill all aspects of the job and to provide independent schools with a reliable way to identify and hire qualified technology leaders who have the necessary experience and education to lead technology initiatives.
After the first application and exam window occurred this past spring, the inaugural graduating class included 37 individuals from the independent school community, indicating not only a passion to grow personally in their professions but also to advance the greater independent school mission in an ever-evolving, diverse education environment.
In this issue’s roundtable discussion, Access Points connected with four of those first TLIS earners to learn about who they are, their experiences with the program, how they’re applying the certification, and more. They are Karen Huang, vice president of operations at Edu-Tech Academic Solutions in Wayne, Pennsylvania; Afandie Winter, director of technology at Children’s Day School in San Francisco, California; Kevin Warenda, director of information technology services at The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut; and Lane Worrall, middle and upper school educational technologist at Greenhill School in Dallas.
Access Points: Introduce yourself and tell us about your background. Karen Huang: My background is in elementary education. I started teaching third and fourth grades in Fairfax County Public Schools just outside of D.C. A few years into that, I decided to apply to be what they call the school-based technology specialist — knowing that my teammates had always looked to me for technology questions, or I was always developing and creating new lesson materials using technology, which was back then not quite as ubiquitous as it is now. I ended up being a technology coach for 10 years in Fairfax County. And then when my husband got a job opportunity in the Philadelphia area where I grew up and where my family was, we moved back. I looked at independent schools because I didn’t have a Pennsylvania teaching license at the time. And I found Edu-Tech, started doing some of the same stuff of tech coaching at independent schools in the Philadelphia area. As the business grew, I stepped into more of the operations back-end role of the business. Now, I oversee the team of tech integrators at Edu-Tech, as well as help with the business stuff. Afandie Winter: Prior to joining independent schools, I ran a successful Mac repair and consultation business in San Francisco. I joined a pre-K–8 independent school as a technology specialist in 2014 after seeing a Craigslist post with a mission statement that spoke to me. The school was expanding its 1-to-1 iPad program and had a newly renovated community center with a state-of-the-art audiovisual system that housed its music, drama, and sports program. It needed someone to support the director of technology in their one-person technology department. Together, we grew the technology program in the classroom and supported our teachers and learners. In 2021, I left the school where I had made connections to further my career at Children’s Day School (CDS), which was larger with two campuses and, by enrollment, almost double the number of students and employees. When asked why I wanted to join CDS, I told Rico Tan (director of technology) that I was interested in joining his four-person tech team and being his successor one day. Little do we know that “one day” ended up being eight months later, when he went on to further his career at the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. Kevin Warenda: I’ve always loved working with technology. One of my earliest memories is being the only student in my kindergarten class curious and determined enough to play “Oregon Trail” to figure out that the switch to turn on the classroom computer was on the back of the machine. I showed my teacher how to do it, so I guess you could say I’ve been supporting teachers with technology since a very young age. Fast-forward a few years, and I had the great fortune to land a job supporting technology at the University of Connecticut when I arrived as a freshman in the fall of 1999. While I was technically a “student worker,” the position rapidly grew in scope and complexity, allowing me to learn and grow in all aspects of managing and supporting technology for administrative areas and teaching and learning alike. Six years later, having earned a B.S. in management information systems and an MBA in operations and information management, the university kept me on, officially launching my professional career supporting technology in education. I made the transition from higher education to public K–12 in the early days of the modern ed tech explosion — the transition from colorful iMacs in library computer labs to scores of clamshell Mac laptops and iPad 2s on mobile carts in classrooms … district hosted email servers to Google Apps for Education for all! After nine years of experience supporting pre-K–12, including the opportunity to open an $80 million-plus state-of-the-art high school, I embraced the opportunity to take on a new challenge … the independent boarding school. It’s been nine years since then, and between the unique and complex aspects of independent school life and a global [COVID-19] pandemic, it’s been an exhilarating ride of learning and growth. Lane Worrall: I am a Latin teacher by training. As a Latin teacher, I was really into kind of creating some self-paced mastery so that our students could stick with the language a little longer and not be rushed to learn it in the typical time frame. And I just got into using a bunch of ed tech tools to create our content and make it available for the students and facilitate that experience. And then, I just really loved sharing those tools and the aha moments that I was having with other teachers that I was working with. And I was kind of like, “Oh, maybe I could do this.” So, I came into the ed tech world a little differently than other people. I’m in Dallas now at a small independent school and have had the chance here to build an innovation studio and really build the tech program from the ground up. It’s been wonderful. I wear a lot of hats, as I’m sure all of us do. But it’s given me exposure to things that I wouldn’t have necessarily been exposed to if I were just in an ed tech role with a big department of technology people around me. I’m grateful for that, actually. AP: How did your specific journey relate to earning this certification? Huang: Edu-Tech is unique because we work on behalf of the schools. We don’t resell anything. And we’re more of a shared staffing service where we have IT, network administrators, or help desk coordinators on our team as well as people with classroom experience who are the tech integrators. In the Philadelphia area where the school market is so saturated, there are a lot of really small schools that can’t afford or don’t even have a need for someone full time, and it’s hard to hire somebody part time with the expertise and education and background that you really need for a tech integrator role or an IT director role. So, that’s where Edu-Tech fills that gap, where we hire the employees and then we assign them to their school. Sometimes, they are full time, five days a week at the school. Other times, they are just part time, split between two or three different schools. ... I do often consult with schools. I also work one day a week at IT in an independent school. And [the TLIS certification] just validated that I have the experience and the knowledge and the expertise to make these recommendations. I really do know what I’m talking about. I do know what I’m doing. Which just kind of gives me the credentials to say, “Hey, I’m TLIS certified. I’ve worked in schools in the K–12 arena for a long time, and I’m here to help you move your school forward.” Winter: I grew both personally and professionally at both independent schools. I made deep and meaningful conversations and connections, not just in technology. I also had a curiosity about how every department worked together to educate and how a school is run. I must shout out my CDS people, Rico, Jeanne (director of finance and operations), and Shelly (head of school), who all saw my potential and supported me professionally. They recommended that I join the ATLIS Leadership Institute and encouraged me when I applied for the TLIS credential exam. Warenda: For me, the timing of the opportunity to earn the TLIS was right in line with the story arc of my professional career. While I may have had a great deal of experience in education and technology broadly, I’ve come to learn through my experience that supporting technology in independent schools is unique in many ways. As the technology landscape continues to expand rapidly in terms of scale and complexity and at the same time many independent schools face significant enrollment and fiscal challenges, there is not a better time for technology professionals to demonstrate that we have the unique knowledge and experience necessary to successfully lead our teams and guide our schools through what lies ahead. Worrall: Although my background definitely has been ed tech, the past seven years have been running everything from redesigning and upgrading the network to having to figure everything out. So in that way, when I was taking the test or even prepping for the test, I did feel at least that I’ve had a little bit of experience. I know enough to be able to recognize things and understand the workflows. I think that’s the biggest part — understanding how it all kind of works together. And I think that’s something that’s a great piece of this certification — really pushing the importance of understanding the bigger system that you’re part of and how it all works together smoothly can enhance both sides.
I wanted to do it just to test myself. In my [previous] school, there currently is a department of one and a part-time [person]. Sometimes you forget all the things you’re doing and the value that you bring; you just get in the weeds. So, [the certification process] was nice. I liked it. AP: How did the certification program meet or exceed your expectations? Huang: Well, being part of the first cohort, I didn’t know what to expect. So, expectations were kind of low. I was kind of like, “Well, I’ll just apply and see what happens. And if I don’t pass, then I’m not going to feel too bad about it because it’s the first group, and we’re still figuring things out, right?” But I appreciate being able to take the test in Reno because it kind of forced me to mentally prepare. I had a set date; I was going to be with people I was accountable to, was able to meet some of the other people who were taking the test. I think if I were to do it online on my own, I might have put it off and not bitten the bullet. Winter: I attended the webinars and read ATLIS’s communication about this new certification. All of the information was clear and concise and showed me that earning this credential is the next step in my growth. I knew I had the support, experience, and capability to be a technology leader in an independent school. Still, now I could take an exam to prove myself and earn an ultra-focused and relevant credential to highlight this. Warenda: The program has exceeded my expectations from the very beginning. I have been extremely impressed with the speed and quality of what has been developed in such a short amount of time in terms of the exam itself and the supporting materials, events, people, and other resources that go along with it. Worrall: It surprised me. And it also excited me that I was so prepared. When I was going through the materials, it felt like it was for me, and it felt like it wasn’t this scary thing that I was going to have to somehow go and figure out how to do a bunch of coursework alongside a full-time job. It was really just recognizing the on-the-job skills that I’ve developed over the past 17 years. And that felt really good and affirming. AP: Were there any specific aspects you found valuable or challenging? Huang: Because there’s just that handbook, and then we went and took the test, the handbook was very, very helpful. I think I read through it and I thought, “Oh, yeah, I could answer these questions. I could do this.” And reading the sample questions was a huge help. Winter: I opted to take the exam remotely, which itself was a test (of patience). It took about 20 minutes of back-and-forth chat with the exam proctor, who did not like that I was using an external monitor instead of squinting and hunching over my laptop. I had to take my analog windup watch off my wrist because it was against the rules. I had to clear my desk of all paperwork (invoices and contracts I was responsible for reviewing) for compliance. The monitoring app running on my secondary device kept crashing, so I kept getting interrupted by messages from the proctor to get it up and running again to ensure I wasn’t doing anything foul. Warenda: Having had experience many years ago with a similar certification program as well as the information security certification I currently hold, there is one thing that I have found to be unique to this experience, which has been both valuable and challenging at the same time. Because the TLIS is not the type of certification you can “study for” per se and instead is more a demonstration of knowledge gained from real-world experience and ongoing engagement with professional development opportunities, it required me to do a great deal of reflection on past practices, both good and bad, successes and failures, and the lessons I’ve learned that inform my practice on a daily basis. It has been both valuable and challenging to think back and take the lessons from those experiences along with what I have learned from peers and professional development and apply them to the activities and situations presented in the exam. Worrall: I think a great piece of it is the ongoing professional development aspect. I would love to delve into those areas that maybe I am not as strong in. I’m a little bit of a perfectionist, so taking the test and not being able to get feedback — like, I want to know what I got wrong. I want to know what the right answer is and get some more information so that I can grow. So, I think it was challenging for me not to know if the answer is right. Choices do depend a bit on the environment you’re in, the school, the size of the school, public or private. There is nuance to it. I’m not sure how exactly we would incorporate that. But just allowing for some nuance.
Applying the Certification
AP: Can you share specific ways you have already applied what you learned from the certification in your current role? Huang: The spring and summertime are usually big hiring times for schools. As Edu-Tech looks through resumes, either for our company or on behalf of schools, I keep thinking, “Wow, it would be really nice to have that TLIS certification listed right there in the resume.” I would know straightaway to put that candidate at the top of the list. Winter: Some of the scenarios described in the exam align with issues and strategies that I solved and proposed in the last few leadership and tech team meetings. Talk about instant gratification! Warenda: On a daily basis, I am leading a team of other professionals supporting technology in an independent school setting; managing complex projects to implement new technologies; implementing programs to further the mission of the school while keeping its data and community members safe; developing policies, plans and budgets; supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts; and helping others think about ways in which technology can help us learn better and work smarter. There is not a minute that goes by that I am not applying what I have learned by preparing for this certification. Worrall: I think that the cybersecurity piece was definitely already on my mind prior to the certification, but it did prompt me to push a little bit harder in the transition out of the school to put some things in place that maybe would encourage the next people to adopt some more rigorous standards. It’s just such an opportunity for a teaching moment for not just the students, but for the faculty and for everybody to really understand the why. It’s not just this mandate; it’s because it’s really valuable. AP: How do you think this certification will benefit your career in the long term? Huang: The self-validation gives me that extra confidence that the things that I recommend — and my initial gut instincts — I can go with that. … It just helps with validating that what I’m doing is helpful and the skills that I have are helpful to schools in providing them with correct guidance. Winter: This certification will highlight to my current and future employers that I have the knowledge, understanding, and expertise in my field and will excel. Warenda: In my current role, it demonstrates to my school community and stakeholders that I am the right person for the job, dedicated to learning and growing and validating that knowledge and experience for the benefit of the school. Keeping up with the required professional development to maintain the certification will serve as an incentive to continue to learn and grow. Should I have an opportunity that I wish to explore to move on to another independent school in the future, [the certification] will demonstrate my skills and experience and may be the difference between being selected for a position over other candidates or not. Worrall: I’m hoping that it will be a way for future employers or other colleagues to better understand what I do, what skills I have. It’s hard for those people who aren’t in IT or who maybe only kind of work in small components, you know, just ed tech or just IT, that they kind of make some assumptions. … It’s really more about creating this modern learning environment, which encompasses all the different pieces.
Personal Insights
AP: What was the most rewarding part of the process to earn this certification? Huang: I think learning that I passed the test because I’ve worked in so many different schools and different size schools and types of schools. Warenda: The most rewarding part of the process for me has been reading all the statements that ATLIS has been posting from newly certified TLIS holders, describing the value this has for them. It’s just great to be part of something new and exciting and be able to see how it has impacted others in my network. Worrall: Just that sense that what I have been doing and what I’ve been working toward means something. It’s an acknowledgment of the stuff we do every day. And that feels really good. It feels empowering to be able to have that highlighted. It also gives me a chance to reflect and see the areas that I do really want to grow in and learn more about. AP: Can you share any memorable experiences or highlights from your experience (so far) with the program? Huang: I appreciated being able to network with the people who developed the test. They were all very encouraging and supportive, which was nice. And then now, hopefully, through LinkedIn, I’ll be able to network with other people who have also gotten their certification and be the small family of the first cohorts to be inducted into this certification. Winter: Talking and connecting with other technology leaders about the program at the past ATLIS conference was interesting. While most were as excited about the program as I was, a couple of folks were less keen. After seeing the ATLIS posts on various sites about the first cohort of tech leaders who earned the credential, I received news that they have applied for the next exam window. Warenda: One highlight so far has been the outpouring of support and congratulations from my professional network. When ATLIS sent out the email newsletter announcing the inaugural class of TLIS-certified professionals, I received a note from my boss saying, “I see you made the list of newly certified professionals!! Way to go!!” Worrall: I mean, honestly, just kind of seeing the community you know, kind of come out even on LinkedIn, just the supportiveness of the team and being able to connect with other TLIS-certified, you know, educators. And I love a collaborative community. That’s kind of my happy place. It’s nice to have that, especially coming from the school where it’s just me. I mean I have all of the teachers and students and I love them, but it's nice to have the connections, the network.
I will say that the exam was the most intensely proctored experience. I was a little grateful that I graduated a long time ago before this. It was cool to see something that I don’t interact with on a daily basis, but that our students will experience, and so it’s nice to even sit in their seat.
Looking Ahead
AP: What advice would you give to future candidates considering this certification? Huang: I would say definitely read through the handbook carefully and think about what your personal goals are in terms of your career directly if you are looking for a tech leadership position, or if you’re already in one, what is this going to do for you? Is it going to help you get a different job somewhere else? Or is it just going to bolster your credentials? The handbook was key. Winter: Join us and earn this certification. It marks your dedication, commitment, and growth. It will give you a sense of validation, confidence, and continued drive for professional development. Warenda: As Nike says, “Just Do It!” If you meet the requirements to sit for the exam, then you already have what it takes to be successful as a technology leader in independent schools, so this is a great way to validate that knowledge and experience and to demonstrate that value publicly. Worrall: I think the best way to prepare for it is certainly the resources ATLIS provided. Got me through it. But I think if I had time, really go for those opportunities where you get to interact with other tech leaders from other schools and get their input. Even just having a casual Zoom study group, and maybe some of you have knowledge about areas in particular that you could share, and everybody can hear that shared experience. Because every school experience is different in little ways that add up. And I think it’s the workflows that are the most helpful to learn from, from many people. So, I’d say have a study group.
