IT Strategies for a Successful School Year Start

So if you've just joined us, we are easing in here,

telling about our summer projects.

You can join us@minty.com with that code

that you see up in the top there.

And we've got some coming in through the chat, through, uh,

so new ticketing system, network, refresh,

classroom free refresh.

Basically, you had a busy summer,

you weren't up to anything.

Right? Moving and starting a new job. Big, big things.

Copiers, new help desk software. Fantastic.

Uh, about 10 more seconds on this

one, and we're gonna go to the next one.

And again, you can also unmute y'all.

Today is a meetup,

and so if you are able to, we encourage you

to turn on your camera if you're not in a location

where you can turn on your camera, but you are able

to come on with audio.

Um, there is no formal presentation today.

There are no slides aside from our little

icebreaker activity right here at the beginning.

We're just gonna be talking, uh,

we're gonna be chatting about what you want to talk about.

So glad to have you with us here.

So we see construction and renovation. That's fun.

Again, y'all just do it all.

Network, refresh, all the things. Hiring. All right.

Show of hands. Who else hiring the summer? Y'all hired? No.

Kind of. Did you try Matt?

That, that's like a, it didn't go well. No.

Are you done, Stacy? Yes.

No, we already did. I'm done. No more.

There you go. There you go. Wipe that one off the list.

Nice. Alright. Louis says hiring as of today.

Oh, okay, my friend.

So, uh, our next one, funny or unexpected help desk ticket.

What have y'all received?

What shenanigans have you had come through?

This could be lately, or it could just be your

favorite one that you've received.

Again, feel free to unmute.

You can also add it to the chat or drop it on the minty.

Looks like Stacy has one.

I think Stacy had her hand up for a second ago.

Stacy was part of the Atlas leadership cohort,

and so I saw her in Columbus at the kickoff.

She's just started a brand new job,

so a lot going on in her world.

Stacy, glad to have you with us today, my friend.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm in the middle

of CROs training right now,

but I wanted to jump on for a few.

Alright, sounds good.

Alright, like 10 more seconds for,

uh, our help desk tickets.

You may be writing 'em up.

Still up.

Is it too late to add if the tell desk ticket starts with,

is it too late to add you?

Just, you, it's not gonna be good from there.

Custom multi TV set up, integrated audio,

wireless protection, et cetera.

In my new classroom. Yeah. Yeah.

We'll get right on that for you. Do you have A-V-C-R-I can

use for my class coming through on the chat with Lauren?

Oh, goodness, yes.

It's right next to the microfiche

and the old school projectors.

Very good. All right, five more seconds.

All right, last chance. Anybody, anybody submitting one?

All right, well, we're gonna keep us

moving on to the next slide.

I did wanna take just a moment to thank our sponsor meter.

So in just a moment, we're gonna turn it over to Matt Norco.

Matt is going to be our independent school guest facilitator

today to help us, uh, get through the discussion.

But first we just wanted to take just a second to, um,

turn it over to Meter and let them, uh, say hello to you.

I'll tell you, they're doing

some really cool stuff out there.

If you're not familiar with Meter,

they have this new thing called Meter Command,

and it integrates AI

and natural language in a very, uh,

interesting way into your dashboards, your network.

You can create a lot of custom stuff.

So, David, do you wanna just say hello to everybody

and tell 'em just real quick, uh, what you guys are up

to these days, and then we're gonna turn it over to Matt.

Yeah, thanks so much, Ashley. Hi everyone.

I'm David Richards from Meter,

and as Ashley mentioned, not gonna take up too much time,

um, but just wanted to thank Atlas for, you know,

bringing us together and hosting this discussion.

I'll just take a couple minutes, uh, today

to talk about some of the kinda insights that we've seen

through our work with schools.

Um, you know, as we gear up for another school year,

we're all focused on leveraging technologies effectively

as we can to serve our communities, whether it's students,

teachers, staff, families alike.

Um, and throughout my conversations with, you know,

educational technology leaders around the country,

I think four key themes have really emerged as,

as you know, priorities.

Um, the first is balancing long-term strategic innovation

with day-to-day operational demands.

That's always a challenge. Uh, effectively onboarding

and training new staff.

I see some, some many people have, have, uh, hired recently

or are hiring, um, navigating the flood of new AI tools.

I know that's been a challenge for me personally, um,

and maintaining stringent data security

and privacy standards.

So, you know, at Meter, as Ashley mentioned, we manage, uh,

thousands of networks across various

sectors, including many schools.

And throughout this extensive experience, we've,

we've gathered some insights about these challenges,

which I'd love to quickly re relay here with the hope that,

you know, some of it might be, um, of, of, uh,

help to, to, to you.

So one key lesson we've learned is,

is the power of proactive support.

Um, so shifting the, it it approach from being predominantly

reactive to one that, you know, uses technology

to anticipate or even mitigate issues before they arise.

So when IT teams have tools

and processes in place to predict

and mitigate potential disruptions,

it significantly reduces, you know, network downtime.

It, it reduces interruptions in learning.

Um, and speaking with our customers, we found

that this proactive stance also enables technology leaders

to spend more of their time engaging in instructional

training, supporting educators

and effectively, you know,

integrating technology into their teaching practices rather

than constantly firefighting

and responding to, you know, tactical technology issues.

I think another critical insight is the importance

of rigorous yet flexible processes

for vetting new technologies.

You know, schools face an increasingly complex and,

and frankly, overwhelming landscape of tech solutions,

especially, you know, AI driven applications.

Uh, so it's crucial to establish clear, clear criteria to

evaluate these tools, um, not just

for their educational value and technical compatibility,

but also their alignment with, you know,

data privacy standards and value.

Um, you know, finally fostering continuous learning

among staff, students,

and faculty around technology is, is vital.

So, you know, we encourage regular training sessions

and ongoing professional development to help ensure

that school communities, you know, not only adopt,

but also embrace technology in ways

that genuinely enhance learning and collaboration.

Um, so at Meter, just wanted to sum it up.

We've, we've really noticed that AI tools hold significant

promise in, in, you know, establishing a lot

of these solutions to these challenges, in our case

with simplifying network management and support operations,

and, you know, automating routine tasks,

providing rapid insights, enabling, you know, your team, you

and your teams to, to focus on what's, what's important,

what matters for your students, uh, teachers and,

and families of your schools.

So really looking forward to hearing, um, your,

your experiences and insights today, especially regarding

how you're managing these, these types of challenges.

Um, it's always a pleasure to hear from technology leaders

such as yourselves, and thank you again for having me.

I'm, I'm excited to hear, uh, from Matt

and the rest of the team, uh, about everything you're,

you're, you're, uh, working on.

Thanks, David. Well, we appreciate the support.

Alright, so y'all, we're gonna turn it over to Matt Norco.

I bet most of you know this guy. He is amazing.

Um, he is Tela certified, by the way,

and is out in Los Angeles at Marlborough School there.

And Matt, you're the director of Educational

and IT Information Technology.

Is that Yep, I have, I got your title correct. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, so you wear all the hats. Yep. Well, welcome.

We're excited to have you with us today

and to kind of lead the discussion with our group there.

So, again, people, if you are able to, um,

turn on your camera, we encourage you to do that.

And, um, Matt's gonna take us through

and just, um, you know, ask us some discussion questions

and see if we could, um, just chat about some

of the challenges and the things happening,

especially at this point in the school year.

So, Matt, what's, what's going on?

What's on your mind today?

Absolutely, thanks. Yeah, so, uh, for those of you

that don't know me, um, I'm Matt Norko.

I'm director of Technology at Marble School in la.

This is my beginning of my second year here.

So I, uh, I feel like I've got the one year under my belt

and now ready for,

for all the new stuff for the next school year.

Um, as Ashley said, this is,

this is obviously just an open forum.

We don't really have a program per se,

but one of the things that we know is that

as tech directors, uh, we learn from each other

and, uh, do better when we can ask each other questions,

work through problems, et cetera, et cetera.

And so really that's what this time is for.

Um, and so, uh, I would encourage everybody to jump off mute

and, and talk about what you got going on.

Um, I mean, I, I, I know from our opening exercises,

obviously there's, there's some folks

with some projects going on, new ticketing system.

I'm one of them. We just switched to a new ticketing system.

We got new copiers, um, that are being installed currently.

Um, I know somebody just switched a job.

Louis, you said that you, uh, are hiring as of today.

Um, so, so let's just start off there.

Like, what, what are your challenges this summer?

Like, what are you all working on? What are your challenges?

Where are you in your summer progress?

Because I know that clock is ticking,

at least for me, that's what I feel.

Also, don't all speak at once.

I'll come off mute. Thanks Louis.

You're welcome. Um, I would say that, uh,

I don't know if this is the experience

for everyone here on the call,

but it, you know, in the summer,

it's never just usually one major project

that's happening at a time.

It's multiple simultaneous projects.

And depending on the scope of your role,

whether you're touching both the IT side of the house

or the ED tech side of the house, you're also having to deal

with like different audiences

for work, what you're working on.

So like, we're working on devices

that are gonna get rolled out to students.

There's like a, uh, you know, uh, an education component

for both kids and for adults

because it'll be a shift for them.

Um, and then, uh, on the IT side of the house,

we're rolling out a new, uh, a lot of new processes

and tools to digitize things

that were previously done on paper.

So you're dealing with now, um, non-teaching faculty

and teaching faculty

and how they're interfacing with operations at a school.

And so, um, having those regular

check-ins, at least with people

who work at a school 12 months, uh, is really important.

And it's good when there's representation,

not just from one part of the school, like being able

to have a good conversation

with a division head about something

that's touching the academic areas just as important

as meeting with HR

and the business office about other things.

So, um, sometimes the temptation is to kind

of sit in a silo when you're working all those things, uh,

especially during the summer.

But I found that, uh, really being extra communicative

and, uh, utilizing that,

that downtime in a school well is helpful

to get those simultaneous things done.

Well,

Benny, I saw you come off mute.

I just wanna see if you wanna add?

Yeah, I just, here's where I'm at.

It's today, just to kind of give you a, a sense,

being in the south, today is the first day with new faculty.

Um, we also, uh, I was the one who said

that we've got construction

and renovation students begin on the 20th.

Uh, we had our new upper school building turned over to us.

It was done according to construction.

Ah, we're still not ready to host classes.

And we have 16 classrooms with started.

The renovation started on the 30th that they're supposed

to turn over to us next week.

I'm not believing it. And again, we're expected

to have classes in on the 20th.

Um, I was reminded today in, through several of meetings,

we did our technology training with our new faculty

of all the processes

that we had forgotten about, that we rolled out, um, such

as emergency communication within our titan

and sending that down to the teachers.

And so right now I'm feeling further

and further behind each and every moment.

And, you know, I know that people are extending grace and,

and everything, but it's just, it's a very unsettling

because there's more

and more that we're being asked to take on to deal

and to manage, um, in addition to all the new systems

that we're bringing on board and online.

Yeah. You know, when I was listening

to you talk about your new building

and Louis talking about coordinating,

there's like two things that I kind

of remember from early in my career that seemed

to have just evaporated, which is

that summer was a great time to do stuff.

Um, and honestly, summer is so busy

and so chaotic now that it is hard

to do projects in the summer that, you know,

generally speaking, our schools used to be empty,

or a lot of them used to be empty in the summer.

And now we all have summer programs

or just other, like,

big infrastructure projects like building infrastructure

projects that are going on.

And I find I have found it more

and more difficult every year

to do major projects in the summer that don't take a lot

of coordination to Louis's point.

And I think one of the things that has also,

that I've noticed, noticed has become challenging is

that a lot of people love to just unplug for the summer,

administrators included.

And, um, it's really tough when you do need

to have some pretty tight integration with a lot

of different, uh, and communication with a lot

of different folks on campus when

they're gone for four weeks.

Um, and what does that, what does that do for you

and your work over the summer?

But it, but it's also that members

of your team have families mm-hmm.

Who their children are available in the summers.

And to also pro be able to provide them space to be able

to get some time off with family, um, in, with all

of the various different projects.

It's just, it's a massive juggling game.

Yeah, absolutely. It definitely is.

Craig, I see, I know you started a new job.

Uh, you're, you're on your listening tours.

Sounds about accurate. I think I just got

off of mine for sure.

Um, how are you finding your new job? What, what,

Uh, yeah, it's, it's super exciting.

Um, I think one of the bigger challenges was

that it required a, a relocation across the Pacific.

So yeah, there was all the logistics of that

and, you know, still waiting for stuff to arrive.

Uh, the, the car got here, uh, within a couple of weeks,

but everything else is, um, I,

I hope sitting on a ship somewhere, we'll, we'll see.

Um, but everything at the new school has been, you know,

really, uh, it, it's really good.

It's, uh, fortunate that I had time, uh, in a,

um, a pretty big, uh, IT department.

So I got exposure to all sorts

of things without necessarily having

to be hands-on with all of them.

Uh, so that's at least given me the opportunity to, um,

have an idea of, of kind of how to conceptualize, um,

the things that are in place here

and, you know, a point of comparison

or at least to understand that in a much smaller school, um,

different processes are necessary, you know?

Yeah, absolutely.

And, uh, as somebody who didn't east coast

to West coast move, I empathize

with taking forever to get here.

It took us five and a half weeks to get our stuff.

Yeah, yeah. No, I, I I think that

that's very realistic in this case too.

And, and, and that's okay.

I, the other part of it is that, uh, you know,

my wife's trying to, uh, commute back

and forth right now for a little bit, so, um,

that'll be interesting until she gets here,

you know, full time too.

So, yeah.

Um, some,

but like Vinny said, like summer used to be a, a time

of a little bit of a step away or,

or, um, you know, a long-term project, uh,

getting the attention it needed.

And, uh, I, I don't think that

that exists in many places anymore.

And then certainly if you're making a job change during

that time, uh, there's, there's no break. Yeah,

No, I know. That

is definitely a challenge in and of itself.

Yeah. For me, I, can you hear me okay?

Yep. Yeah.

For me, the challenges, many challenges, I,

I'm also kind of new to the role.

Uh, I, I mean the Boston area I studied in January,

um, and right now, in addition to

what others have said about the challenges brought up

by summertime, has to do with communications,

uh, and training.

We have syst new systems,

and we're changing from some vendor to another.

And all of that has to be communicated

because people are on vacation

and we have an unspoken policy of not bothering people

during the summer, but we'll still need to know.

Um, and then there's so much happening

that there's a question of do I prioritize

and announce some things

and not some other things, maybe down the road.

And also some things people need to be trained on,

but we don't have the time right now.

Or we can bring people on campus to do the, or, or,

or asking them to watch a video or to do anything

because they're on vacation, uh, well deserved vacations.

Um, so that, that has complicated things a lot

because I like to, I like to prevent tickets from coming in.

Uh, the best way to prevent those some tickets is

by training people and giving them the resources they need.

If I don't do that, I'm sure I'm gonna get a lot of tickets.

Um, and that's what I'm trying to anticipate.

But it's, it's hard because we have

so many things going on at the same time,

and people are not paying attention.

People are traveling, so people need to take vacation.

Uh, so that's my challenge right now.

Yeah, juggling a lot

of different priorities is certainly one of those, uh,

extra bullet points in our job descriptions for sure.

Um, but Julio training obviously is, is

critically important in the summer.

Um, we all have, you know, new equipment that we're,

we're getting, uh, we have new staff that are starting,

new teachers that are starting.

Um, I would love to kinda shift the, the conversation to

that training and onboarding,

and especially at this time of year,

and I'll, I'll share one of the challenges that we have,

which we currently don't really have an answer for,

but in California, labor laws are like very specific.

And so we would love to get everybody in the system as soon

as they're hired and say, Hey,

here's how you change your password.

Here's some training that we've created for you, blah, blah,

blah, whatever we want.

Um, but that counts as work.

And so as much as I would love to set people up,

we can't set people up, which is both, um, you know,

great from a security standpoint

and horrible from a getting people onboarded standpoint.

And so we really can't even send some of that information

until their contract starts, which for us

is like the week that school starts.

Um, which is obviously not ideal for

what we're hopefully trying to get through.

Um, that seems like it's more of a California specific

situation, but I know onboarding new faculty,

getting their equipment, figuring out

how you're doing training, whether it's asynchronous

or synchronous, um, one-on-one is always a challenge.

I would love to hear how people are tackling it in their

roles or in their new roles.

So, um, we consult,

or at least I consulted

with our HR team here in North Carolina,

and I think universally requiring people to be trained,

um, or be onboarded

before their official start date is not legal.

Mm-hmm. Um, we do provide an optional training on our LMS

the week before, um, faculty contracts begin.

Um, and we are able to do that so long as employees aren't,

you know, required to attend it.

And most people are willing to come in

and try to make it digestible so

that way they can best use their time.

Um, obviously there's an accommodation for people

who just like select not to do that.

And so some of the training we repeat for people,

but I think in terms of, uh,

easing people into the school year

and getting people introduced to the tech department

and the, the things that they'll be working with over, uh,

an hour has, um, been super beneficial.

Yeah. Sounds like what I would love to do.

How does stuff like that work for everybody else,

or even during the school year training in general,

or onboarding throughout the year?

I know another challenge for us is

that I feel like we do get a good rhythm down in the summer,

and then you have sort of an off cycle hire

that happens midyear

and all of a sudden it's like, well,

they get like 15 minutes and it's just not the same.

And then you always forget to go back and do things.

I know another situation that

we end up finding ourselves in is trying not

to overload folks with training

and onboarding when they start.

And so we try to do a very high level, um, orientation,

I guess, and focus a little bit more on exposure to

what we have and what they can do versus

actually training them to do it, uh, which is, uh,

good in some respects and also not great in other respects.

And that, uh, that to me, I feel like finding

that balance is, is a little bit of a challenge.

'cause some folks want it, some folks don't,

and I don't know

how everybody does their orientations.

This would be actually be interesting.

Um, does everybody have,

does everybody feel like they have enough time

for tech onboarding, but is they feel like an

Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, let's rephrase that question.

Does anyone feel like they have enough touch?

Not just everybody? Does anyone?

I I think the answer to that is universally no.

Um, you know, there's

so many different competing priorities at schools.

Um, that's definitely a pain point that we hear.

And again, we're talking about some

of these larger trends that we're seeing.

We talked about the schools and having to generate,

you know, revenue all throughout the year.

Now that's eating up your summer project time.

The other thing is this hiring cycle, it used

to be a little bit more stable.

Everybody kind of came in at the same time.

You go through, you got like a little cohort of people.

We are seeing massive amounts of churn

where it's constant onboarding.

And so I'd love to poke at that a little bit with these,

you know, mid-December hires that you're now having

to onboard and, and get together, like Matt said.

Do y'all have any strategies for those like people

that don't come on, you know,

with the typical summer onboarding,

um, what are y'all doing for those?

Do you have a good plan or anybody? Your schools do it well.

All right. Pain point for everybody. Yeah.

So no one's got that one figured out. That's okay.

We can keep moving on.

Yeah. Um, so I, you know, I think like one of the things

that I also work, uh, on during the summer is planning

for the year ahead, right?

The summer obviously is about getting some things done,

but also about figuring out what to do in the year ahead.

Um, and that is, that seems like something

that's always a little bit of a challenge

'cause it's hard to have one foot and one project

and another foot looking at one that's not even started yet.

Um, but I'm interested to know sort of

how folks go about their year ahead planning, um, especially

during the summer when you have time available.

Um, unbeknownst to both Ashley

and David, one of the things on my list

for this summer is actually looking at meter

because we have a big network, uh, infrastructure refresh

that's gonna be happening this this year.

And so, um, that's, that's something

that's on my mind right now.

You know, do I, you know, are we replacing like, for like,

am I ripping, replacing?

Am I making major shifts?

Um, there's a lot of, a lot of pieces that I feel like I'm,

I'm looking at while also kind

of focusing on the here and now.

Um, and a I would love to hear

what projects people are working on for their next year,

but also what are your challenges?

What are your successes?

Ashley, I feel like you all could talk about this.

'cause you just went through a big old

infrastructure change at Atlas too.

I mean, y'all didn't notice that.

Uh, our website went down yesterday for a little bit

and had a little, little hiccup.

Yes. Little hiccup. Yes.

So, um, we did,

we have updated our association management software.

It is the, the backend, basically the database, the website.

Um, I hope you enjoyed, you got a new notification

to join this Zoom meeting.

Did you see that? You did. And I,

I had to log in to get it too.

I was like, Ooh, that's new. I had to remember

Password. Yes. It's,

uh, well, hopefully we can,

we can get you logged in set up

and it'll be like a, a one click thing,

but, um, some great new reminder systems

and some much easier member experience.

So, uh, yes, we had some pains on the staff side as we,

you know, went through that transition.

But the great news is we're really excited about the member

experience, uh, being able to update your,

your profiles in a much, uh, easier way.

It's simpler to find things, to find resources,

much more robust system.

So we're really excited about that.

But yes, we just,

like you guys have those big infrastructure projects,

but it's for the good of your, your end user.

We definitely went through that this summer, um,

here at Atlas to try to again, keep everything nice

and secure and, uh,

provide a great experience for all of you.

So

14 day, keep me logged in.

Yep, Greg. Good call. Good call.

Oh,

What about anybody?

Uh, somebody I know said was on CROs training.

I feel like that was like my two years ago summer,

where I was doing a lot of ve cross trainings

as we were transitioning.

Can't remember who that was. Um, oh, maybe she left.

I believe that was Stacy.

Yeah, so y'all, that's, that's really interesting.

So we, like I mentioned,

we just had the Atlas Leadership Institute.

There are so many people in new roles

at schools across the country, so that's been another,

you know, big thing that we've seen this summer in

particular, a lot of movement

and, uh, change up within schools, uh, themselves too.

Yeah, absolutely.

Let's switch gears to another thing

that I do feel like comes up for all of us,

at least at some point, um, which is hiring.

Um, I know Vinny, I think you had two positions open.

Louis, obviously you said you had one as of today.

Um, talk to us about those.

Like how, how does, how's that working out?

I, I just hired a position, um, in May,

so I feel like I went through it pretty recently,

but Vinny, why don't you start us off?

Yeah. We still, uh, have, well,

we now have two open positions.

So within our operations team, we were able

to hire system analysts.

Um, we just

because of all the projects we've, we we've managed

where you have a open help desk, uh, support specialist,

um, which is more of an entry-level position,

which we had just posted yesterday.

Um, it, you know, it, it is what it is.

And, and as part of the, this particular process is that

many of our job descriptions were

at minimum seven years old.

Some of them as old as 14 or 15 years old.

Um, and all the job responsibilities have really changed.

And so we've gone through a whole process with our hr, head

of school, assistant head of school to just kind

of recalibrate what it is that everybody does

and what their responsibilities are.

So it's been a, a process,

but then, you know, I'm gonna have to jump off in about five

minutes because we had that late withdrawal of the contract,

and so we're trying to hire someone

for the start of school year, so

Yeah. On our

academic side. So it's crazy.

Yep. But the pool is thinner.

I will tell you that, that the pool is extremely thin.

That is, that is a, a very real challenge.

I have found the, the, the pool

of applicants is not thin.

The pool of qualified applicants is, is a little thin.

Correct. And, and, and more specifically

and narrow, at least here in Houston

and where you've got a lot of big business oil

and gas, it's those who are willing to willing

or have ex customer service experience

in a nonprofit where you oftentimes have to wear many hats

as opposed to being just this narrow slice that I am a

Yep, very, very true.

And depending on the role, there's not always a lot

of people who are looking for 100% onsite.

Um, which can also be a challenge. I know.

Louis, what about yours?

Yeah, we had, um, a faculty member give

some notice, um, very last minute, very last minute.

Um, and so, uh, I oversee our,

our STEM faculty,

and so hiring an engineering teacher like two weeks prior

to the start of classes is gonna be a challenge.

So sometimes you have to take, take a step back

and, you know, in your mind work a plan B as you're trying

to work a plan A,

and then like have plan C like tucked in your back

pocket as well.

Um, I think it's,

it's nice when you have some level

of stability on one side of your team.

Um, but I think, you know, when it comes to faculty,

that tends to be a little bit more unpredictable

in the past couple of years.

And I wonder why.

Yep. Anybody else

thinking about hiring

or have any hiring stories?

I have, uh, success story, uh,

of hiring because yes, as you guys mentioned, uh, it's hard

to, um, find people, qualified people.

So what I did is, uh, contacted a couple of,

uh, companies that do contract to hire, um,

implementa or relationships, uh, and services.

So we were able to hire a highly competent, uh,

affordable help desk, um, manager.

And it's been ama it is been great.

Uh, so it helps because it helps both sides

because the per it is, it's not a, you know, full-time hire

with like benefits

and they be, they become an employee of the school.

Mm-hmm. Uh, your relationship is with the con

with the contract to hire company.

So you sign a comp, a contract with them, you pay them,

and they, they, they take care of everything else.

And this is that way.

It's, it's like a long I see like, like as a,

as long dating a, a person, so they get a, a chance to

work with us without having to fully commit you.

You know what I mean? And then the same for us.

But this person has been incredible.

Uh, so, um, I, I don't, I cannot tell him right

that right now, but I think we're gonna offer him,

um, the full-time position.

But it's, it's like a, a good compromise.

Uh, and they save you so much time

because they are the ones looking for candidates, um,

vetting their resumes with,

I didn't have to go through that.

They, they asked me, how many,

how many finalists do you need?

And I said, give me five.

So out of the hundreds of people, they,

they have, they sent me five.

I said, no, uh, I sent two, two back

and I said, uh, gimme two, two more.

So, and then I interviewed five people.

They, they were incredible.

Uh, unfortunately our top candidate took a job somewhere

else, but then even the second, third, fourth

and fifth candidate were incredible.

Uh, and it's, it's a good, good way to help you save time

and kind of, uh, um, alleviate some of the challenges

that come with hiring full-time

a person in tech is, is really tough.

Yeah. Well, that's great to hear

that it was a good experience for you.

I know that it's not always the case

and can be a real challenge.

And we're talking about the difficulty of being able

to kind of vet through, you know, you get all

of these applications, but like,

how do you actually tell if somebody's qualified?

And we've been very, uh, encouraged

and excited to see a lot of schools

for these upper level more strategic positions requiring the

t list certification or, uh, having it as, you know,

a desire qualification.

Uh, so that's been really great

and seeing a lot of you out there receive that,

I'm gonna drop a link to that if you're

interested in, in learning more.

Um, but that's been a cool update kind

of on the Atlas job front side of things.

And we do have a job board, by the way,

if you're still posting and trying to get the word out,

uh, we can help you with that too.

I have a question for Matt, uh,

since he's also in California. Yeah,

Go for it.

Um, when you are, uh, posting positions

and, uh, they have, uh, some, uh, academic component

to them, uh, how are you able to navigate, um,

what seems like either a required practice

or just common practice, um, of requiring the,

um, California clear, uh, teacher license

or administrative, uh, certificate, uh, that seems

to be attached to lots of the, the job postings here?

That's a good question. 'cause I don't think ours,

I don't think ours require that.

Yeah. I think that independent schools have the

flexibility, but, um, see we're seeing, um, just a lot

of crossover because in the community I'm in,

I mean there are, are such a mix of the two types

of schools public and,

and, uh, independent that

there's a little cross pollination happening, it seems like

with the postings, um, you know, oh,

maybe we should be asking for that too kind of thing.

Yeah, I mean, to me,

the more stuff you put in the job description,

the harder it is you're gonna find the harder it's

to find applicants, so mm-hmm.

The least restrictive that you can word them, the better,

or at least yeah.

Have a clause in there that says all this is preferred,

but if there's a reason mm-hmm.

We should consider you. Like I've seen, I've seen

that wording that I really appreciate

because sometimes I would look

and yeah, for example, if I, you know, if a public school I,

I'm from Connecticut, and if you wanted

to have a tech director job in Connecticut, you had

to have the public school administration certi certificate.

Sure. And so I don't have that,

so I just like would never look at those, but not, yeah.

That's only for K 12. So like if I wanted mm-hmm.

Uh, a tech director job at like higher ed level,

it might still say that, but it's not necessarily required.

And so they're really good about saying like, this is

what we like, but if you have qualifications, you know,

that, that don't meet these for whatever reason,

but you still feel like you're qualified,

like don't not apply.

Um, so yeah, there's lots of different ways to word it,

but I feel like being as a, as least restrictive

as possible, or at the very least we're, you know,

writing in something like, this is what we want,

but also don't not apply just

because you see this. Um, because

I think, yeah, I was in Minnesota for many years and,

and the wording there always was, um,

but a, a variance, you know, as possible, you know,

if if it was, if it's the right candidate, um,

you'd give em a year

or something to, to get, uh, the certification that

was posted as required even though, you know,

that's the person you really wanted

and they may not have that at the time.

Yeah. Well it is an interesting, um,

longer term conversation to have as well,

because I know like, you know, all pretty much all of our,

the job descriptions or the chart, the job postings,

the requirements and the job postings that probably all

of our schools say that a four year degree is required.

Like you have to have a bachelor's master

degree, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, the trend is kind of

that people aren't necessarily getting mass,

um, bachelor's degrees.

They might be getting a whole bunch of like,

micro certifications.

So at some point mm-hmm.

We may even need to like rethink

what our job postings look like.

Um, yeah. You know, we're, we're kind of at,

at some point we're maybe shooting ourselves in the foot

and especially in the tech field Yeah.

Where so many people may not have that higher ed,

that formal higher ed, um, path,

but that doesn't make them unqualified.

So I think it's Sure. Particularly challenging

for us in that regard,

Matt, I think that's really insightful and,

and forward thinking, and especially at independent schools,

sometimes I feel like we can just kind

of like put on our little blinders

and be like, oh, you know, we're academia

and so we must require all of these things,

but I think you're absolutely on point with where some

of these trends are going and we need

to be paying attention to the market.

Yeah. I think that that is like one of those things too,

particularly around, um, independent schools though, and,

and tech may be an area where we could kind

of like lead this change is

that if you don't have a bachelor's required, you know,

a lot of schools see that as, um, we're

not attracting like the best candidates, right?

Like there's a negative connotation associated

with with going that route.

And so I think tech is probably a good area

where you can sort of change that conversation

because that's not what it means.

Um, it's not what it means regardless,

but especially in tech

where its skills are much more specialized, um,

in certain areas, um,

I think tech could help lead lead that charge.

Before we just jump into another topic, is there anything

that anybody else has on their mind

that they wanna talk about?

Um, either in general summer based forward thinking,

anything on your mind at all?

Well, if somebody does definitely just unmute

and, and cut me off.

I think the, the sort of definitely the elephant in the room

for tech this summer is, is certainly ai.

Um, and, uh, I think it's, it's probably,

it would be interesting to see where people are.

Craig, it would be really interesting to,

to hear your perspective kind of coming from one school

and joining another, um, you know, how you think that

that is going or, or

how things differ from one to the other.

Yeah, I mean I turned off or,

or uh, changed the setting to opt in for, uh, Gemini

and, uh, notebook LM before last Friday.

So, um, that was kind of the, the same process

that was at my previous school as well.

We kept it open for, uh, faculty,

but uh, then, uh,

turned on the student groups when the academic leadership

said, yeah, I think we're, we're ready to do that.

So, um, this is a little different situation.

This I'm at a pre-K six school, so I think it'll be a while

before we try to, um, extend any of that, um, maybe

to a certain class or for a, a particular project.

Um, but overall, uh, we're trying to be very encouraging

of faculty using AI

and, uh, incorporating it into their

administrative practices

and professional practices, uh, regarding, um, instruction.

So that's good.

In fact, I think my new school is probably a little bit

ahead of my previous school in that regard.

Great. Great to hear.

I think my school is probably the opposite.

I feel like the end of the school are spooked a lot

of people and, uh,

and they requested the academic leadership requested

that we keep Gemini or turn Gemini

and Notebook LM off for our, for our students, um,

which I'm not sure is necessarily meeting the goals they're

hoping it's gonna meet, but mm-hmm.

It's the decision, not mine.

Yeah.

Anybody else? Anybody like onboarding,

like a cool new AI tool this summer that you're hoping

to roll out in the next couple of weeks

At Least? So we'll, so we'll

be rolling out a new tool here.

I think, um, as many schools have observed over the past

year, um, academic integrity as it relates

to writing in AI have been particularly challenging.

And finding a tool that balances, uh,

focusing on positive, uh, use

and helping to encourage integrity has been a challenge.

And so, um, our school previously we were,

we were using Turnitin

and had, you know, in spite of many warnings

that their AI detection, uh, feature is not so great.

Um, uh, teachers were relying on that,

especially in our honor council.

And so we did an evaluation of a couple

of different products, um, one being Grammarly

and their authorship, um, product, which is a great one.

I think it's great. Uh,

and the other one being from a, a company called True Mark,

um, who essentially provide, uh, an ecosystem for students

to write and an AI chatbot

that can help give feedback along the way,

but also be managed

and monitored by the teacher where Flint School,

and while, you know, Flint does have like some really great

things related to activities, um, in terms

of being a vehicle for writing, um,

wasn't ideal in this use case.

So we're gonna be implementing True Mark, um,

and having people in our humanities disciplines

where there's a lot of writing, um, get trained

as like super users so

that way they can train their faculty.

'cause trying to coordinate, um, a last minute tech training

before the start of the school year when there's a lot

of PD going on is really challenging.

Um, so we're adapting a train the trainer model there.

And what I was most impressed with connecting with

the gentleman over at True Mark is how

their platform does give a way for some positive use

of AI in that editing process.

So, um, thinking about that you scale, we actually,

with Vinny's permission

and credit borrowed some of what he had done at Kincade

to make our own, um, assessment scale like

and where AI fits into things.

And so I'm excited about that.

I think it'll be really, um, good for our faculty, um,

and help them grapple more with

what is appropriate use when it comes to AI in writing.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know that's been a obviously that

that's a challenge everywhere with AI use in writing

and ours is very, um, our, our current academic integrity

policies are pretty stringent

and so they don't like it showing up anywhere in the

process, which is a little challenging.

And also, um, you know, where, where do you draw that line?

Is it just the humanities or do lab reports count

or, you know, where, where exactly is that line drawn, um,

for AI use?

And I think that's a, an interesting

discussion to be had as well.

True. Marco, I'll have to, I'll have to take a look at that.

Louis,

Y'all, if you're struggling with the training piece

for faculty, I do wanna let you know we are about

to roll out some courses.

They're really interesting.

They're very much in the tech lane.

Uh, so it's AI and design thinking.

There's one on AI and media literacy, um, things like that.

But they're actually not only for the tech leadership,

but they're also with faculty.

And this is in partnership with ED three Dowell,

so be on the lookout for that.

I think you'll find those interesting.

Um, they're asynchronous courses that you can have

as supplemental things for your faculty

for some great training.

Yeah, I

feel like this has, uh, popped up on the listervs over the

course of the summer too, but kind of in thinking about ai,

I'm wondering if anybody's, um, rolling out, uh,

internal AI tools like chat bots that uh, help you work

with your internal, you know, whatever it might be,

it's attached to your handbooks or help desk

or anything like that.

I know it's something personally like it's been in my mind

and I just haven't looked into it at all,

but I've, I've heard some schools that are considering it,

which I think is kind of

kinda cool, could be really helpful.

I know some people are using it specifically attached

to their student handbooks, so

that way when families have questions it's a little bit

more, um, natural speech, uh, uh, reaction

that is available 24 7.

Anybody rolling out anything like that?

No,

I am sure at some point we all probably will be,

and it'll be interesting to see where, where we,

where we figure out how those tools fit in with the rest

of the stuff that we offer people.

I know we're, um, just about to

onboard a DP for our payroll

and that was something that we talked about, um, with them.

I think you can, I don't know if it's out yet,

but I'm pretty sure obviously you're putting all your school

policies in your HR system

and um, I believe in AI chat bot who can kinda parse

through all of those documents together is, is a feature

that they're adding, which to me would be incredibly helpful

because nobody knows where to go to look

for things when it's in, you know, three different handbooks

and 20 different policies. Um,

Yeah, so it's fascinating.

So it's not only on the user side of just like your,

your faculty but also in things like your business office.

So my sister works for Paycom, same kind of thing as a DP,

and they are rolling out all of this just very natural

language, um, AI that interfaces with all

of your internal secure systems.

And so instead of going into that Excel spreadsheet

and trying to figure things out, you can literally ask it in

plain language for questions.

And again, things are coming out in a lot more dashboards

and visuals and stuff, so it'll be fascinating to see, um,

how that all shakes out over the next year.

And even things like chat GPT rolling out a agentic AI tools

in for, uh, their, their users.

So that's been fascinating too.

Um, any of you playing around with anything like that

for the upcoming school year?

One in particular too,

I don't know if anybody on the call is a Canvas school,

but I know Canvas and OpenAI just announced the partnership.

I don't know what, we're not a Canvas school,

so I don't know what that changes in terms of the landscape

for that tool, but

anybody, nobody, nobody's on Canvas.

Uh, that to me, that one will be really interesting,

especially because it's open ai

and I know a lot of schools probably aren't in partnership

with open ai, but um, that kind of opens up,

I feel like a whole new frontier for some

Schools for sure That they may not want opened up.

We'll see a lot of that too, AI and everything.

It's been fascinating because I've had a lot of, uh,

conversations with people this summer about consolidating

tools as well because now if your new tool system can do all

of these extra things, they keep unveiling more features.

Like does it duplicate

and do you now have five systems

that can do that same thing?

Yeah. Um, so maybe some money saving opportunities there.

Yeah, no, that's a a really great point.

And I know, um, uh, for, for us, like as Lewis said,

uh, we're, we're also a Flint school,

but Flint's has incorporated some,

some extra tools which has made it more useful

for sort of a one-stop shop.

It's not quite there, obviously there's still some things it

could do, but um, for us,

Flint's helped consolidate some of those tools.

We only have a few minutes left.

I don't know whether or not anybody has any closing thoughts

that they would like to share before we head out whether

or not there are lingering questions anybody may have.

Um, but we can certainly open the floor for that.

Sounds like not.

That's all right. Louis, we can go ahead and wrap y'all.

Thank you so much for coming here

and uh, being with us at this very busy time of year.

Uh, Matt, thank you for being our facilitator today.

You did a great job. We appreciate you leading us

through some of these questions and a, a great discussion.

And David and Peter again,

we appreciate y'all's sponsorship and support.

So y'all stay in touch.

Lemme know how you're doing this school year

and we'll talk to you soon.

Have a great day everybody.

Thanks Ashley. Take care. Bye everyone.