Driving Deeper Learning with Ray Shay
Join us as Ray Shay, Director of Technology at Brooklyn Friends School, shares his unique journey from webmaster to overseeing auxiliary programs. Discover his insights on AI's impact on independent schools, the crucial role of data systems, and why human connection and critical thinking are more vital than ever in a tech-driven world.
- La Salle College High School Tech Experiential Learning
- Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart - student-led creation of the local chapter of the eNable network and 3 years of “Build-a-Thons”: Video | Article
- Student-led PPE project during pandemic: Article
- Brooklyn Friends School
- Team Engagement Tools: StandOut (now powered by ADP) | 15Five
- Ray’s LinkedIn profile
- Bill’s photo of trip home from ATLIS Annual Conference
- Vendor management platform, 9ine
- ‘We Have to Really Rethink the Purpose of Education’, podcast episode from The Ezra Klein Show - education policy expert Rebecca Winthrop explores the big questions emerging for educators and parents
- The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better, book by Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop
- In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School, book by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine
Transcript
Peter Frank 00:00:02
Ed, welcome to Talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:00:05
the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for
Peter Frank 00:00:08
technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.
Peter Frank 00:00:12
We'll hear stories from technology directors and other
Peter Frank 00:00:15
special guests from the Independent School community,
Peter Frank 00:00:17
and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.
Peter Frank 00:00:21
And now please welcome your host. Kristina llewellen,
Christina Lewellen 00:00:25
hello everyone, and welcome back to
Christina Lewellen 00:00:27
talking technology with Atlas. I'm Kristina Lewellen, the
Christina Lewellen 00:00:29
President and CEO of the Association of Technology
Christina Lewellen 00:00:33
Leaders in Independent Schools.
Bill Stites 00:00:35
And I am Bill Stites, the Director of
Bill Stites 00:00:37
Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New
Bill Stites 00:00:40
Jersey,
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:41
and I'm Hiram Cuevas, the Director of
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:43
Information Systems and Academic Technology at St Christopher
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:46
school in Richmond, Virginia.
Christina Lewellen 00:00:48
Hello, gentlemen. It is so good to see
Christina Lewellen 00:00:50
you guys. It's been a while. This is our first gathering and
Christina Lewellen 00:00:55
our first recording after the Atlas conference. And I have to
Christina Lewellen 00:00:58
tell you, I think that it's been not quite a month. It's been
Christina Lewellen 00:01:02
several weeks since the conference, and I have only
Christina Lewellen 00:01:06
slept in my own bed a couple of nights. I have been on the road
Christina Lewellen 00:01:10
since the Atlas conference. So I don't know if I'm still just
Christina Lewellen 00:01:13
riding the Atlas high or what it is, but I'm still smiling. How
Christina Lewellen 00:01:17
are you guys doing? Have you recovered?
Bill Stites 00:01:19
Recovered? Maybe not. I was explaining the
Bill Stites 00:01:25
misadventure we had coming home, which had us leaving nine hours
Bill Stites 00:01:30
delayed, and then, you know, reroute it from Newark to
Bill Stites 00:01:33
Dulles, and then driving from Dulles to Newark and blowing out
Bill Stites 00:01:38
tires and vans and having tons of people, so that literally
Bill Stites 00:01:42
killed me. For an entire weekend, I was like, done,
Bill Stites 00:01:46
caught a cold, was in bed over the weekend after that, and then
Bill Stites 00:01:50
got right back into school. And school has been running full
Bill Stites 00:01:53
bore because it is May, and it feels like every minute of May
Bill Stites 00:01:58
is ticking by faster and faster. So yeah, definitely not getting
Bill Stites 00:02:02
any rest since I got back, definitely busy and looking
Bill Stites 00:02:06
forward to things, but still feeling rejuvenated from the
Bill Stites 00:02:10
conversations that we had and everything that went on at the
Bill Stites 00:02:13
conference. I say it time and time again, it's one of those
Bill Stites 00:02:17
must attend things for me each and every year, and I'm still
Bill Stites 00:02:21
riding the high from that, regardless of how tired I am
Bill Stites 00:02:25
from it as well. I'm
Christina Lewellen 00:02:26
so sorry that you had travel woes. I know
Christina Lewellen 00:02:29
that some people did, and there was a lot of nonsense happening
Christina Lewellen 00:02:32
with in particular air traffic stuff. So I'm so sorry to hear
Christina Lewellen 00:02:35
you had that, and equally sorry that you're now slogging through
Christina Lewellen 00:02:39
the 100 days of May. I know that's always a really busy
Christina Lewellen 00:02:42
time. How about you? Hiram, are you crazy busy right now?
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:46
Yeah, we're crazy busy as well. Fortunately,
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:48
though my travels, because I didn't have to go up to Newark,
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:51
New Jersey, we were on time and managed to get home fairly
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:56
easily. But I tell you the amount of energy that was put
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:00
forth during the 10 year anniversary of the Atlas
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:04
conference. I think I'm still tired from it, along with the
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:08
100 days of May, because there was so much activity and so many
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:13
conversations, and as a result, more phone calls to people from
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:18
the conference and more emails, etc, that I feel like I'm a bit
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:22
on a treadmill, but I have APS winding down, so I'm glad for
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:27
that. And as soon as this is over, I'm driving to Blacksburg
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:30
to pick up my baby girl, to bring her home. Year one is
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:34
done. Lots going on.
Christina Lewellen 00:03:36
Congratulations. We
Bill Stites 00:03:38
have graduation this weekend. Tomorrow, we leave
Bill Stites 00:03:41
for Gettysburg because Sean is graduating from Gettysburg.
Bill Stites 00:03:46
Congratulations,
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:47
Sean from the pod.
Christina Lewellen 00:03:49
Yeah. And I just did that last weekend
Christina Lewellen 00:03:50
myself. That's one of the many, many trips that I had, is that I
Christina Lewellen 00:03:54
watched my daughter Morgan graduate from the University of
Christina Lewellen 00:03:58
Mary Washington, and that was super cool. She's our first
Christina Lewellen 00:04:02
college graduate among the four. So it's been crazy and fun. I
Christina Lewellen 00:04:06
also, Bill almost got hung up in that New Jersey nonsense, but I
Christina Lewellen 00:04:10
flew to Dallas and drove to my next event, which was in
Christina Lewellen 00:04:14
Syracuse, New York. So it's been crazy, but I'm really glad to
Christina Lewellen 00:04:18
see you guys, and I'm sure we will talk a bit about the annual
Christina Lewellen 00:04:22
conference, because we are being joined today by someone who,
Christina Lewellen 00:04:25
shockingly, was a first time attendee to the Atlas
Christina Lewellen 00:04:30
conference. Because Mr. Ray Shea, I feel like you've been
Christina Lewellen 00:04:34
around forever, sir. I can't believe you've never been to an
Christina Lewellen 00:04:36
atlas conference. How did we let that happen? I
Ray Shay 00:04:39
know it never worked in the schedule, but this year,
Ray Shay 00:04:43
even with some scheduling mishaps and some Newark
Ray Shay 00:04:46
craziness, I'm so glad it happened that I'm definitely
Ray Shay 00:04:50
still on the high and yearning for more. I can't wait till next
Ray Shay 00:04:54
year. It was such a great first year experience, and Bill's been
Ray Shay 00:04:57
telling me all 10 years that I needed to be there. There, and
Ray Shay 00:05:00
I'm so glad to have finally made it and meet Hiram in person and
Ray Shay 00:05:04
so many other awesome members of the Atlas community.
Christina Lewellen 00:05:08
Well, Ray, you were in your first year at
Christina Lewellen 00:05:10
Brooklyn Friends School. You're the director of technology
Christina Lewellen 00:05:13
there, and your role is expanding here in a couple of
Christina Lewellen 00:05:16
months, where you're also going to take on auxiliary programs.
Christina Lewellen 00:05:18
So why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself to our
Christina Lewellen 00:05:21
listeners, sure.
Ray Shay 00:05:23
So this is my 21st year in independent school
Ray Shay 00:05:27
education. Prior to being the Director of Technology at
Ray Shay 00:05:30
Brooklyn friends, I was the director of technology at
Ray Shay 00:05:32
Princeton Academy, the Sacred Heart for the last eight years,
Ray Shay 00:05:35
where I wore a number of additional hats as well,
Ray Shay 00:05:38
Director of summer programs for a time, Interim Director of the
Ray Shay 00:05:42
business office and assistant head of school for operations
Ray Shay 00:05:45
and strategy. And like I often say, my favorite role, head
Ray Shay 00:05:50
coach of the middle school speech and debate team. And
Ray Shay 00:05:53
prior to being at Princeton Academy for 12 years, I was at
Ray Shay 00:05:55
my alma mater, LaSalle college high school in Philadelphia. Go
Ray Shay 00:05:59
birds, Bill Stites Gilbert there, I was director of web
Ray Shay 00:06:04
technology, and also was the head coach of the high school
Ray Shay 00:06:09
speech and debate team, and worked with a number of student
Ray Shay 00:06:13
tech groups and excited in this first year. It's been fantastic,
Ray Shay 00:06:18
and I'm looking forward to the extension of the role next year.
Christina Lewellen 00:06:21
You've spent 21 years in independent schools,
Christina Lewellen 00:06:25
and you've covered a lot of ground with the roles, but what
Christina Lewellen 00:06:28
was your entree to this esteemed space?
Ray Shay 00:06:33
Like so many other members of the plot, I love
Ray Shay 00:06:35
hearing everyone's origin stories, but I never intended to
Ray Shay 00:06:39
be a school tech director. I started designing websites in
Ray Shay 00:06:43
middle school. My dad was actually a network consultant
Ray Shay 00:06:47
for a lot of small businesses, and so the computers at home
Ray Shay 00:06:51
were really locked down, like I wasn't the typical model of the
Ray Shay 00:06:54
kids toying around and figuring it out for their parents, like
Ray Shay 00:06:58
my dad had everything locked down, but he did not have a
Ray Shay 00:07:01
design eye, and when his clients started to ask me for websites,
Ray Shay 00:07:06
he had no interest in it, so I taught myself HTML. Started
Ray Shay 00:07:10
working in Claris Homepage, never Microsoft front page, and
Ray Shay 00:07:16
eventually working my way into Adobe Photoshop, Adobe
Ray Shay 00:07:19
Dreamweaver, and went to college for that as a digital arts
Ray Shay 00:07:24
major. Actually double major with communications, and I
Ray Shay 00:07:27
minored in marketing. And I really thought my career was
Ray Shay 00:07:30
going to be in Marcom and joined my alma mater, came back, what
Ray Shay 00:07:35
really had to justify my role as the new webmaster? They couldn't
Ray Shay 00:07:40
believe that they were hiring for a webmaster. Many people
Ray Shay 00:07:43
didn't our principal at the time, he was very visionary, and
Ray Shay 00:07:46
he said, No, no, we're definitely going to need this.
Ray Shay 00:07:49
This is really important, and it was great. I taught a number of
Ray Shay 00:07:52
different preps on top of redesigning the website, but in
Ray Shay 00:07:56
that first year, there were some board members that were in the
Ray Shay 00:07:59
Marcom space and really uplifted the role and elevated it to a
Ray Shay 00:08:04
director of web technology, included it in part of our new
Ray Shay 00:08:08
advancement model at that time, where we were pulling together
Ray Shay 00:08:11
development and Mark com, and that's where I started. That
Ray Shay 00:08:14
like straddling multiple offices where I was, I was in tech, but
Ray Shay 00:08:17
I was coming to the advancement meeting. And, you know, over
Ray Shay 00:08:20
those next 12 years, sometimes my direct report was in
Ray Shay 00:08:23
advancement, sometimes my direct report was in it, but I always
Ray Shay 00:08:27
had my feet in both parts of the school there. And
Christina Lewellen 00:08:31
so I have to jump right to the thing that my
Christina Lewellen 00:08:34
brain is most interested in. It sounds like you were kind of
Christina Lewellen 00:08:37
there at the beginning of everybody needing the website,
Christina Lewellen 00:08:41
everybody at least caring about the design of a website. And now
Christina Lewellen 00:08:46
here we are again, at this moment of kind of technological
Christina Lewellen 00:08:50
change. And I often equate what's going on in AI in
Christina Lewellen 00:08:55
education to the same kind of wrestling that we were doing
Christina Lewellen 00:08:58
with internet in education. How do you feel about that? What are
Christina Lewellen 00:09:02
your options? Observations?
Ray Shay 00:09:04
Yeah, I think it's a strong comparison, right?
Ray Shay 00:09:07
Because the internet was so impactful, and yet, how much
Ray Shay 00:09:12
have we really changed education? You know, have we
Ray Shay 00:09:15
just taken things and put them online? We had the advent of the
Ray Shay 00:09:20
Internet, we had a pandemic where we really had to rely on
Ray Shay 00:09:24
the internet to stay connected, and this was supposed to be the
Ray Shay 00:09:28
thing that made us shake up education, but we really kind of
Ray Shay 00:09:32
returned back to doing things the way we have, and maybe
Ray Shay 00:09:35
hanging onto a tool here or there, or maybe expanding some
Ray Shay 00:09:40
of our online offerings, but the full model of education hasn't
Ray Shay 00:09:44
really changed, and now you have people talking about artificial
Ray Shay 00:09:47
intelligence, specifically generative AI, and what impact
Ray Shay 00:09:52
that's going to have, not just on schools, but on the workplace
Ray Shay 00:09:56
and on our entire fabric of society. And. But I think
Ray Shay 00:10:00
there's camps that are, you know, saying this is going to
Ray Shay 00:10:03
change everything, and education, the whole model, is
Ray Shay 00:10:05
going to be turned on its head. And then you have others who, I
Ray Shay 00:10:08
think are sitting back and saying, you know, I don't know
Ray Shay 00:10:11
about this, you know, we still need teachers. We still need
Ray Shay 00:10:13
this math lesson and this unit, and I think it's somewhere,
Ray Shay 00:10:17
probably in the middle that it is going to change things. And I
Ray Shay 00:10:21
think education needs to look past just the ed tech tools that
Ray Shay 00:10:26
are being sold to us, and just look at how can we change what
Ray Shay 00:10:31
we fundamentally know about students and what we know isn't
Ray Shay 00:10:35
working in our schools? And can we take this opportunity to
Ray Shay 00:10:38
actually engage students better. And I think there's a concern
Ray Shay 00:10:43
that generative AI will reduce engagement, right and reduce a
Ray Shay 00:10:48
lot of critical thinking and cognitive functions. But if we
Ray Shay 00:10:51
plan things correctly, if we really are collaborative, the
Ray Shay 00:10:55
way I love our IT community always is, I think there's a
Ray Shay 00:10:58
path where this is beneficial and transformative for not just
Ray Shay 00:11:05
schooling, but the whole idea of education and being lifelong
Ray Shay 00:11:09
learners. So I'm hopeful. I'm always optimistic, but I'm
Ray Shay 00:11:13
hopeful that maybe this time around, things are gonna shift
Ray Shay 00:11:16
and change. And
Christina Lewellen 00:11:18
I mean, all three of you guys were at the
Christina Lewellen 00:11:19
conference, and I'm sure you're in those rooms more so than I
Christina Lewellen 00:11:23
am, right because I am running in a million directions. What
Christina Lewellen 00:11:27
was the vibe of AI at Atlas, annual conference? Where do you
Christina Lewellen 00:11:32
think we are in this journey? Ray is outlining, you know,
Christina Lewellen 00:11:35
where it could go. Where are we right now? Just listening to
Christina Lewellen 00:11:38
your peers and your observations in terms of what the speakers
Christina Lewellen 00:11:41
were saying. What are your thoughts about AI coming off of
Christina Lewellen 00:11:44
the conference? Specifically,
Hiram Cuevas 00:11:47
it's interesting because the year before, it was
Hiram Cuevas 00:11:50
really the first iteration of AI conversations for our community,
Hiram Cuevas 00:11:56
and this year, it's interesting watching that needle move
Hiram Cuevas 00:11:59
substantially in terms of the overall offerings at the
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:03
conference compared to last year. It seemed like everybody
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:07
was incorporating AI into their work in some capacity. I mean,
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:12
even in the tracks that I spent a lot of time in with CIRIS,
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:16
they were talking about leveraging ai blackbauds track
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:19
was talking about leveraging AI Toddle was talking about how
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:23
it's involved with AI and their learning management systems. I
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:26
mean, it is certainly becoming omnipresent. And I think to
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:30
Ray's point, we really need to be mindful of how we're using
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:35
it, and develop the guardrails so that the pedagogy that's
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:39
developed for our teachers can be the most fruitful for our
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:44
students, because we want them to develop good habits. We
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:47
certainly do not want them to develop poor habits, and it's
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:50
going to be really easy to develop poor habits if you just
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:54
look at how our students are responding to cell phone use and
Hiram Cuevas 00:12:57
smartphone use. So this is an opportunity that can't be
Hiram Cuevas 00:13:01
missed. And I certainly think that if our schools are not
Hiram Cuevas 00:13:06
making an effort to embrace AI in the curriculum, they're doing
Hiram Cuevas 00:13:11
their students a disservice
Bill Stites 00:13:13
to hiram's point. I mean, I think you couldn't
Bill Stites 00:13:15
escape AI at the conference. I mean, I think it was like in
Bill Stites 00:13:18
every if it wasn't in the session title, it was definitely
Bill Stites 00:13:22
in the conversations that were ongoing in those sessions. And
Bill Stites 00:13:26
it's interesting. I mean, I think for as much as we're
Bill Stites 00:13:29
talking about the possibilities of what we can do with it, I
Bill Stites 00:13:32
think we're still also talking about the questions that come up
Bill Stites 00:13:35
with it, and I think we're still walking that line. I mean, I
Bill Stites 00:13:38
think back, it was now two years ago that we were out in Grand
Bill Stites 00:13:42
Rapids, and we were sitting in one of the pre con workshops,
Bill Stites 00:13:45
and what we were talking about and discussing there, and you
Bill Stites 00:13:48
can definitely see the line arcing up, you know, in terms of
Bill Stites 00:13:53
how we're doing these things. But I still think that there is
Bill Stites 00:13:56
this questioning nature about how we're using it, how secure
Bill Stites 00:14:01
it is. I mean, I think those things are still definitely
Bill Stites 00:14:04
there, but I think it's opening up a lot more. Hiram, you
Bill Stites 00:14:07
mentioned the pieces in the Cirrus track, and I think that's
Bill Stites 00:14:11
a really interesting place that you and I are spending a good
Bill Stites 00:14:14
deal of time. My question, actually, for you with this is
Bill Stites 00:14:19
having spent time, not only on the educational side of things,
Bill Stites 00:14:24
and this is one of the things, I mean, I would really love to dig
Bill Stites 00:14:27
in deeply with you, because I'm curious about your experiences.
Bill Stites 00:14:31
But when you were spending time working in the business office,
Bill Stites 00:14:35
you've got a very interesting perspective there, and what you
Bill Stites 00:14:38
talked about in terms of the way in which you worked with
Bill Stites 00:14:40
advancement in those other areas. Where do you see those
Bill Stites 00:14:44
conversations going in the operational areas of school
Bill Stites 00:14:50
around AI, given your experiences that you've had in
Bill Stites 00:14:54
both of those worlds?
Ray Shay 00:14:55
Yeah, before I jump into that, I just want to add on
Ray Shay 00:14:59
to the. Both of you, I agree, feels omnipresent in not just
Ray Shay 00:15:04
the Atlas conference, but every TV offering that's out there.
Ray Shay 00:15:07
And I think in addition to those practical questions that you're
Ray Shay 00:15:10
bringing up, Bill I valued being at a quicker school this year
Ray Shay 00:15:14
and the questioning and querying of environmental impact and
Ray Shay 00:15:18
resource allocation and and fair labor and copyright, there's a
Ray Shay 00:15:23
lot of still existential questions we need to grapple
Ray Shay 00:15:27
with. And as educators, we owe it to our students to kind of
Ray Shay 00:15:30
model the type of critical thinking and questioning that we
Ray Shay 00:15:34
want them to do when they're faced with problems or
Ray Shay 00:15:38
opportunities and then jumping back into the practical, yeah,
Ray Shay 00:15:43
Bill, I think there's so much potential in streamlining
Ray Shay 00:15:48
operations and helping with these synergies between offices.
Ray Shay 00:15:53
So when I was interim director of the business office, a lot of
Ray Shay 00:15:57
my aha moments were around like how tech has felt about capital
Ray Shay 00:16:03
expenditures and how the finance office really needs to think
Ray Shay 00:16:07
about capital expenditures and depreciation tables and whatnot.
Ray Shay 00:16:11
And in talking with other tech directors, some people have that
Ray Shay 00:16:14
good dialog with their finance office, but I think it's a space
Ray Shay 00:16:18
that needs more of that I also saw into accounting and how the
Ray Shay 00:16:23
way that our accounting systems are set up, I think our business
Ray Shay 00:16:27
offices could use some good jam sessions with their tech
Ray Shay 00:16:30
directors to really make sure that they're set up in a way
Ray Shay 00:16:33
that it's providing more visibility and serving the
Ray Shay 00:16:37
institution. And I saw a lot of ways that I think I grew an
Ray Shay 00:16:41
appreciation for accounting that I absolutely did not have when I
Ray Shay 00:16:44
took accounting 101, in college and living through two audits,
Ray Shay 00:16:49
seeing just how we can streamline those processes, I
Ray Shay 00:16:52
moved us to two audits that were completely virtual. The audit
Ray Shay 00:16:55
team never stepped foot on campus, and having to do that
Ray Shay 00:16:59
besides just the ways that we would go paperless, it opened up
Ray Shay 00:17:04
for a lot of things where my mind is now turning and thinking
Ray Shay 00:17:08
about like, wow, with AI, how much can we help this process
Ray Shay 00:17:13
and gain insights earlier in the year, and compile things earlier
Ray Shay 00:17:17
in the year so that the audit doesn't feel like such a lift
Ray Shay 00:17:20
for the finance offices at that one time of year. I also think
Ray Shay 00:17:25
long range planning security, there were so many synergies
Ray Shay 00:17:29
where tech directors are thinking about these topics and
Ray Shay 00:17:33
finance officers are thinking about those topics, whether it's
Ray Shay 00:17:36
from the insurance perspective or the purchasing perspective
Ray Shay 00:17:41
and Facilities Planning, but there's a lot of great
Ray Shay 00:17:45
opportunity for deep partnership there between the business
Ray Shay 00:17:48
office and tech office. And I think no matter what office you
Ray Shay 00:17:51
look at, like I said before, I had my foot in the advancement
Ray Shay 00:17:54
office for a long time, auxiliary programs, I think
Ray Shay 00:17:57
there's always ways where the tech directors can bring a
Ray Shay 00:18:01
certain perspective, a certain energy, a certain problem
Ray Shay 00:18:04
solving and critical thinking to problems, issues and
Ray Shay 00:18:08
opportunities, like across the school landscape,
Bill Stites 00:18:12
right in those areas, where do you think we
Bill Stites 00:18:15
need to have conversations with them around data security and
Bill Stites 00:18:20
like, What are they putting in there? Because most of our
Bill Stites 00:18:23
conversations are around, what student information are you
Bill Stites 00:18:25
putting in there? I mean, when you start talking about
Bill Stites 00:18:27
advancement, when you start talking about fundraising, when
Bill Stites 00:18:30
you start talking about the audit, when you start talking
Bill Stites 00:18:32
about all these pieces, that's a lot of financial information
Bill Stites 00:18:36
that is going in there. There's a lot of dollar signs associated
Bill Stites 00:18:40
with those things. How do you see having the conversations
Bill Stites 00:18:44
with them about using AI in these areas and even what tools
Bill Stites 00:18:49
they're choosing to use, not understanding what's even
Bill Stites 00:18:51
available in those areas? Personally,
Ray Shay 00:18:55
you know, Bill, I've heard you talk a lot about the
Ray Shay 00:18:57
vetting process of software, and I think it is more important
Ray Shay 00:19:01
than ever that we have well established systems in our
Ray Shay 00:19:05
schools for vetting software and programs and even taking a look
Ray Shay 00:19:10
back at the ones that we're already using that are now
Ray Shay 00:19:12
flavoring in AI components. I certainly don't think I have all
Ray Shay 00:19:17
the answers, but I think I have been trying to really gain an
Ray Shay 00:19:20
understanding of, okay, how are you using that? And, okay, hey,
Ray Shay 00:19:24
I know you're using this software platform. Let me look
Ray Shay 00:19:27
into these new features that are coming into it. You know, even
Ray Shay 00:19:30
zoom. We had a nice conversation at the leadership level about,
Ray Shay 00:19:35
hey, when you're recording your zoom meetings, keep these things
Ray Shay 00:19:39
in mind, right? Is it automatically sending the
Ray Shay 00:19:42
transcript, the transcript, and these AI generated transcripts,
Ray Shay 00:19:45
incredible, especially for helping people process
Ray Shay 00:19:48
information differently or have any type of disability that the
Ray Shay 00:19:53
Zoom can assist with. But I've heard so many situations of
Ray Shay 00:19:58
like, oh, we held this inner. You on Zoom, and we stuck around
Ray Shay 00:20:02
to talk about it afterwards, and we didn't realize that the
Ray Shay 00:20:04
transcript went out to everybody who was a part of it, and now
Ray Shay 00:20:08
the transcript went to the interviewee, and it's like, Wow,
Ray Shay 00:20:11
I love sharing those stories, because I don't want that to be
Ray Shay 00:20:14
my school that happened that. And I think Bill to the crux of
Ray Shay 00:20:18
your question, like the data security, looking at and really
Ray Shay 00:20:23
reframing ourselves in the generative AI into like small
Ray Shay 00:20:26
language models, and not just grabbing for the large language
Ray Shay 00:20:31
models that everybody knows, but looking at what small language
Ray Shay 00:20:35
model can I utilize and feel better that my data is saying
Ray Shay 00:20:40
within that area, and what kind of guarantees is that company
Ray Shay 00:20:45
giving me, and even from the guarantees that companies are
Ray Shay 00:20:48
giving us, I'm also just not always confident that it's not
Ray Shay 00:20:53
going to someday end up in a leak that, yeah, they guaranteed
Ray Shay 00:20:58
us that they're keeping it secure, but What are the ways
Ray Shay 00:21:00
that their system could get compromised, and that's really
Ray Shay 00:21:04
hard, I think, to dig down into bill, and I've looked up to you
Ray Shay 00:21:07
a lot over the years of asking those hard questions of vendors.
Ray Shay 00:21:12
So
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:12
Ray, you bring up a great point, Bill and I both
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:14
use nine to help with that vetting process. I actually
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:19
asked nine to do a review of zoom for us, because I was most
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:23
interested in the use of the AI companion, and it is a
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:27
tremendous tool that can be used for a variety of different
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:32
reasons, and it satisfied NAIS vetting process. But what was
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:37
interesting, they said, here's our recommendation, and this is
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:41
to pass your own sniff test as a school, because each of us may
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:46
have a different threshold for risk in terms of our schools,
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:51
they recommend discussing before you use it emphasizing PII.
Hiram Cuevas 00:21:57
Watch what you're saying in these meetings if you're talking
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:00
about students. You never talk about student by name in there,
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:03
and you actually get accustomed to bringing up these extra
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:07
safeguards and guardrails prior to initiating the AI companion.
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:13
And it has been a godsend for many of our subcommittee board
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:16
meetings, because you can actually be attentive, as
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:19
opposed to trying to scribble down notes. And then you go
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:22
back, and you can refresh yourself with what the
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:24
conversation was. But then you remind them, please pay specific
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:29
attention to all of those hallucinations going to occur in
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:33
these transcripts. And I'm convinced zoom has a sense of
Hiram Cuevas 00:22:36
humor.
Ray Shay 00:22:39
And Hiram, I love that the answer from nine, nine
Ray Shay 00:22:43
included something that's so human, right, that interaction
Ray Shay 00:22:46
of conversation, I think everything that we were talking
Ray Shay 00:22:49
about before, with the synergy between departments tech can
Ray Shay 00:22:53
solve a lot, but conversation is so important. And I know I'm
Ray Shay 00:22:57
probably biased in wearing my speech and debate at here, but I
Ray Shay 00:23:01
really do think that it's going to become even more important in
Ray Shay 00:23:04
the AI age that those interpersonal connections, those
Ray Shay 00:23:09
conversations before using a tool, those conversations and
Ray Shay 00:23:13
connections with leaders at other schools that are trying to
Ray Shay 00:23:17
solve the same problems that these human interactions are
Ray Shay 00:23:21
going to become even more important, and that those are
Ray Shay 00:23:23
really skills that we're going to need to continue to elevate
Ray Shay 00:23:28
in the education system, kind of going way back to what Christina
Ray Shay 00:23:32
was asking earlier, like, I think we need to double down,
Ray Shay 00:23:34
and our emphasis needs to be more on Okay, the five paragraph
Ray Shay 00:23:39
essay was great, but If that's not a thing anymore, can you get
Ray Shay 00:23:43
up and defend this? Do you understand this to the point
Ray Shay 00:23:46
where you can debate it, where you can withstand questioning
Ray Shay 00:23:51
about it? And I think that's always been where deeper
Ray Shay 00:23:53
learning was, and maybe this is going to push us to expanding
Ray Shay 00:23:58
that for more students to get that deeper level of engagement
Ray Shay 00:24:02
with material when they don't have to do that kind of surface
Ray Shay 00:24:06
level of just reading, processing and creating an
Ray Shay 00:24:11
output. Now that we're using the computer a little bit more for
Ray Shay 00:24:14
that input and output, what are the human elements that we can
Ray Shay 00:24:18
add on to that that show me deeply, actually understand this
Ray Shay 00:24:22
topic and can speak to it right?
Christina Lewellen 00:24:25
Seems like you have a really strong
Christina Lewellen 00:24:27
interest in this student engagement and driving things a
Christina Lewellen 00:24:29
little deeper. And in particular, you've shared with
Christina Lewellen 00:24:33
us that you get excited about the idea of the elements of
Christina Lewellen 00:24:36
learning that happen on the edges of school, things like
Christina Lewellen 00:24:39
after school programs, summer programs, especially for those
Christina Lewellen 00:24:43
students who are interested in pushing the boundaries of
Christina Lewellen 00:24:46
technology. So tell us a little bit about that and where that
Christina Lewellen 00:24:50
passion comes from. And I know you've been out and active on
Christina Lewellen 00:24:52
this front so share with us a little bit about that.
Ray Shay 00:24:55
Yeah, so I've never been a traditional classroom.
Ray Shay 00:25:00
Teacher. So I know bills come from that background, and I know
Ray Shay 00:25:03
plenty of tech directors have but I always was teaching
Ray Shay 00:25:07
electives. I always was working in after school student
Ray Shay 00:25:10
programs. I always was working in summer programs. Always these
Ray Shay 00:25:15
things on the periphery of school. And a few years back, I
Ray Shay 00:25:18
did an action research project with the International Boys
Ray Shay 00:25:21
School Coalition on how to get deeper engagement, how to
Ray Shay 00:25:25
elevate student voice and choice. And I ended up talking
Ray Shay 00:25:28
about these lessons from the periphery, and how our schools
Ray Shay 00:25:32
could really learn from the clubs and activities or the
Ray Shay 00:25:35
elective classes, the drama, The Tech student groups, and how
Ray Shay 00:25:41
there was such deep learning happening there, and so much
Ray Shay 00:25:44
student agency and voice and choice and all these words that
Ray Shay 00:25:48
we keep talking about in education. But how much are we
Ray Shay 00:25:51
actually creating the spaces and opportunities for students to
Ray Shay 00:25:56
deep dive, other than on the periphery, and in part of doing
Ray Shay 00:26:00
that research with IBS C, which was such a valuable experience,
Ray Shay 00:26:04
we looked at student engagement, and the numbers are chilling
Ray Shay 00:26:08
when you talk to students about, do they love coming to school,
Ray Shay 00:26:12
right? You go through the elementary years, and it's
Ray Shay 00:26:14
really, really high, and then you get to those middle school
Ray Shay 00:26:17
years, and we all talk about like, oh, Middle School is
Ray Shay 00:26:19
terrible, and numbers just fall off. And they get even worse as
Ray Shay 00:26:23
you go through high school, and students are self identifying
Ray Shay 00:26:27
that they're disengaged from school. And I was specifically
Ray Shay 00:26:30
looking at boys in my research for the International Boys
Ray Shay 00:26:33
School coalition. But the numbers are true for girls as
Ray Shay 00:26:36
well. It's not just a single gender that this is an issue
Ray Shay 00:26:40
for. It's all learners. They happen to be a steadily epidemic
Ray Shay 00:26:44
for boys, as we're seeing rates really change of boys graduating
Ray Shay 00:26:49
and boys going on to college. And interestingly, just
Ray Shay 00:26:53
yesterday, one of my colleagues sent me a new podcast from Ezra
Ray Shay 00:26:56
Klein on the disengaged teen, which I haven't listened to the
Ray Shay 00:27:00
podcast, but I did check out that book recently by Jenny
Ray Shay 00:27:05
Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop, because I was updating my IBS C
Ray Shay 00:27:09
research. I never got to present in front of a live audience. I
Ray Shay 00:27:12
was supposed to be in Barcelona and 2020, pandemic hit, and I
Ray Shay 00:27:17
did it alone in a zoom like system with no live audience,
Ray Shay 00:27:22
and it felt incomplete, like I never finished this two years of
Ray Shay 00:27:26
work, and I never got to do it. So this year, I got to go to the
Ray Shay 00:27:29
nice IBS C conference in April in Manhattan. And it was great
Ray Shay 00:27:33
to update the research a little bit, but to see that we're still
Ray Shay 00:27:36
asking those same questions. John Mehta and Sarah fine, they
Ray Shay 00:27:40
have this great book in search of deeper learning, the quest to
Ray Shay 00:27:44
remake the American high school. And I took so much from that,
Ray Shay 00:27:48
and they looked at all different types of schools, schools that
Ray Shay 00:27:51
are supposed to be progressive, schools, that are traditional
Ray Shay 00:27:53
schools that are supposed to be the next big thing. And they
Ray Shay 00:27:56
came up with, it wasn't me. They came up with the idea that, like
Ray Shay 00:28:00
the deep learning was happening there on the periphery. There
Ray Shay 00:28:02
was this program here, that program there that maybe was
Ray Shay 00:28:05
incorporated in the day, where they saw the speech and debate
Ray Shay 00:28:09
teams, the student tech interns, gaining these really valuable
Ray Shay 00:28:15
lifelong learning lessons and engagement was all on the
Ray Shay 00:28:20
periphery. And that got me heading down the road and
Ray Shay 00:28:23
wondering why we you know, Sir Ken Robinson, how many years ago
Ray Shay 00:28:26
was his TED talk on us needing to rethink schools? And we keep
Ray Shay 00:28:29
hearing people, and there's still people publishing on it,
Ray Shay 00:28:32
because we're not changing the way schools are. So I'm excited
Ray Shay 00:28:36
to continue to expand my role and get back into the auxiliary
Ray Shay 00:28:40
program space, because I see so much continuity. There so much
Ray Shay 00:28:44
opportunity for engagement to extend the school day into those
Ray Shay 00:28:48
after school activities, to extend into the summer, some of
Ray Shay 00:28:52
the students that I had the deepest connections with when we
Ray Shay 00:28:55
talk about relational learning, it's because of what happened
Ray Shay 00:28:57
outside of the classroom, either as a coach or as overseeing a
Ray Shay 00:29:02
tech service project, or any of these non classroom places where
Ray Shay 00:29:08
they get to see you in a different light, and you get to
Ray Shay 00:29:11
see them in a different light, and it expands that student
Ray Shay 00:29:15
teacher relationship. So that gets me super excited to
Ray Shay 00:29:19
continue to do that and hopeful that we'll continue to learn
Ray Shay 00:29:23
from that and make that more part of our everyday education
Ray Shay 00:29:27
experience. So
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:29
Ray It's funny how similar our backgrounds are. So
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:32
I was a summer programs director for four years. We're members of
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:36
the ibsc. Tye Campbell is also a member of the ibsc with at the
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:41
Gilman school.
Ray Shay 00:29:42
I went to that conference. Love Ty. It really
Ray Shay 00:29:45
is
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:46
an amazing organization and some of the
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:48
relational teaching work that they are doing, but I completely
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:52
agree with you that these courses that are on the
Hiram Cuevas 00:29:54
peripheries really do target those affective objectives. In
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:00
student learning that get them fired up for something. One
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:03
class that we taught here for many, many years was build your
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:07
own computer, and we built desktops, and then at the end,
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:12
the goal of the class was to a be your own tech support. So as
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:16
instructors, we would damage their machines in some way that
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:21
they had to then fix and figure out what was wrong with it and
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:24
create their own documentation, and then they would have a LAN
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:27
party at the end, and they would have a great time. I mean, it's
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:31
amazing, because we just had our alumni weekend, and the number
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:36
of former students that came up and talked about that particular
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:40
class is outstanding, so you're spot on. These peripheral
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:44
courses are indeed a way to a child's heart
Ray Shay 00:30:48
and lots of time. That's the way the tech director
Ray Shay 00:30:50
can have more student engagement right during the day. We might
Ray Shay 00:30:53
not have a class, but having that group of student tech
Ray Shay 00:30:56
interns, or a group that you know is really interested in 3d
Ray Shay 00:31:01
printing and comes to you with an idea like, those are the
Ray Shay 00:31:04
times that sometimes the tech director has that student
Ray Shay 00:31:07
relationship building is only there on the periphery. Bill
Ray Shay 00:31:10
you're going to start a zombie class.
Bill Stites 00:31:12
I already have one. Hiram. It's already running. You
Bill Stites 00:31:16
can just stop them. I know Kristina wants us to stop
Bill Stites 00:31:19
talking about this topic immediately.
Christina Lewellen 00:31:23
I find if you ignore it, it goes away
Christina Lewellen 00:31:25
faster.
Bill Stites 00:31:27
One of the things I'm interested in is your
Bill Stites 00:31:30
background with speech and debate, and what you were kind
Bill Stites 00:31:32
of saying about the idea of having to debate your point, and
Bill Stites 00:31:38
I think particularly in the area of AI where you can get the
Bill Stites 00:31:43
answers, you can put in the prompt, you can get the answers,
Bill Stites 00:31:46
you can present the answers. And in a traditional sense, that
Bill Stites 00:31:48
might have been the end of it, but I think this ability, either
Bill Stites 00:31:52
to ask deeper questions or enter into debate about it, really
Bill Stites 00:31:59
gets to a way of assessing students understanding of
Bill Stites 00:32:02
topics, because you're making them defend that. And I want you
Bill Stites 00:32:06
to put on your master class of speech and debate right now and
Bill Stites 00:32:11
tell all of us, what can we learn from someone with your
Bill Stites 00:32:17
experience and expertise in this area? What can we learn from
Bill Stites 00:32:20
that, from this perspective of using Speech and Debate tools to
Bill Stites 00:32:26
gage student understanding for learning,
Ray Shay 00:32:29
I love that question, Bill. What I'll say to start is
Ray Shay 00:32:34
there's so much overlap between what we do as tech directors and
Ray Shay 00:32:38
what I would teach as a speech and debate coach, we're teaching
Ray Shay 00:32:42
critical thinking, whether we're working with our team or whether
Ray Shay 00:32:45
we're working with our students. There's a problem that's
Ray Shay 00:32:48
presented to the Help Desk, or there's something that they're
Ray Shay 00:32:51
working on in their comp sci class, and we're trying to solve
Ray Shay 00:32:55
that problem and apply critical thinking skills, and even before
Ray Shay 00:32:59
generative AI, even at the level of search, you would put in
Ray Shay 00:33:04
questions often, I would say, I'm the tech director, because
Ray Shay 00:33:07
I'm better at googling things than you. I would say that to
Ray Shay 00:33:10
people all the time because I didn't have the answer. But I
Ray Shay 00:33:13
would go to Google, I'd get lots of responses, and I would try to
Ray Shay 00:33:16
figure out what made the most sense. Are any of these working?
Ray Shay 00:33:20
How do I reframe this question? Because what I got from Google
Ray Shay 00:33:23
doesn't make any sense to me. It's not helping me get any
Ray Shay 00:33:26
closer to the solution. So I think a lot of the things that
Ray Shay 00:33:28
our librarians have taught us over the years are going to be
Ray Shay 00:33:32
even more important today in the AI space, and what we can learn
Ray Shay 00:33:36
from the speech and debate coaches is to make sure we don't
Ray Shay 00:33:40
jump quickly to conclusions to sometimes maybe even argue the
Ray Shay 00:33:44
other side of it. I am loved, and I think it's important for
Ray Shay 00:33:48
tech directors to know you're already doing this. I love the
Ray Shay 00:33:51
is Ed listserv, and sometimes people will come at it from two
Ray Shay 00:33:55
very different perspectives. And I love that about it. I love
Ray Shay 00:33:59
when a conversation as well. At our school, we do it this way,
Ray Shay 00:34:02
and someone else is like at our school, we do it this way, and
Ray Shay 00:34:05
whether that's the structure of the IT team, whether that's what
Ray Shay 00:34:09
software platforms we're willing to deal with the risk on, like
Ray Shay 00:34:13
Hiram was talking about, any of those things, there's always
Ray Shay 00:34:17
room for that debate and that clash of ideas and then
Ray Shay 00:34:22
ultimately rebuttals and synthesis and coming to some
Ray Shay 00:34:27
truth at the end. So Ray, you've
Christina Lewellen 00:34:30
now wrapped up, or you're about to wrap up
Christina Lewellen 00:34:32
your first year at your school. You've had all these different
Christina Lewellen 00:34:35
roles. What's on your mind for this summer? I know summer is
Christina Lewellen 00:34:37
always a little bit of a reset. Sounds like you're taking on a
Christina Lewellen 00:34:40
new role, but what's going to keep you busy this summer and
Christina Lewellen 00:34:43
what are you looking ahead to in the fall?
Ray Shay 00:34:46
So this summer, there's a number of projects, so
Ray Shay 00:34:48
we're hiring for a new associate director of technology for data
Ray Shay 00:34:52
systems. So we're really trying to elevate that position and
Ray Shay 00:34:56
that data analysis, data visualization across. Our
Ray Shay 00:35:00
campus. So that's going to be a big summer lift is onboarding a
Ray Shay 00:35:03
new team member and working out what are the new
Ray Shay 00:35:07
responsibilities for that role. And in doing so, we don't want
Ray Shay 00:35:11
them to get bottomed down by some of the traditional
Ray Shay 00:35:13
registrar roles, so we have a part time registrar, and how are
Ray Shay 00:35:17
we going to move some of those things there so that some low
Ray Shay 00:35:20
level data things can be taken care of and give space. Give
Ray Shay 00:35:24
true space for someone to partner with every area of the
Ray Shay 00:35:29
school to push further their data analysis, data
Ray Shay 00:35:33
visualization, and I always say data informed decision making,
Ray Shay 00:35:37
not data driven decision making, so that we give some space for
Ray Shay 00:35:41
that debate about what the data actually means and what it means
Ray Shay 00:35:45
we should do going forward. So that's one I think, as a tech
Ray Shay 00:35:49
team last summer was really about learning what processes
Ray Shay 00:35:52
were in place here, onboarding a couple other new members, myself
Ray Shay 00:35:56
getting onboarded this summer. We already have started down the
Ray Shay 00:36:01
route of, okay, we now know where some of our holes are.
Ray Shay 00:36:04
We're using like the Atlas, 360 self survey. We already have
Ray Shay 00:36:08
that as a guide for how many things we need to do this
Ray Shay 00:36:12
summer. And sometimes that gets daunting, but it's like such a
Ray Shay 00:36:15
great resource. When you jump into a new space, be able to
Ray Shay 00:36:18
say, Okay, let's see how many things we can check off, and
Ray Shay 00:36:21
then let's see what months and what plan we can have to get all
Ray Shay 00:36:25
of this completed, and then reviewing the things that maybe
Ray Shay 00:36:29
already are in place. But now that I seen this in action for
Ray Shay 00:36:32
nine months, maybe I think we might want to tweak this, or we
Ray Shay 00:36:35
might want to consider how I did that at the previous school. So
Ray Shay 00:36:39
that's the summer, but I'll also say this is the first time where
Ray Shay 00:36:43
I've been in a school where I'm taking more time to breathe, and
Ray Shay 00:36:48
I think the Quaker tradition has been good for me, and so I hope
Ray Shay 00:36:52
to take some time this summer and not have too many big
Ray Shay 00:36:56
projects, and give myself some time to rest and recharge for
Ray Shay 00:37:00
The next year, because I know Hiram and Bill probably feel
Ray Shay 00:37:03
this way. Many, many, many, many times over the last 21 years, my
Ray Shay 00:37:08
summers were much harder than the school year, and I needed a
Ray Shay 00:37:11
break from my summer. 100%
Christina Lewellen 00:37:14
we definitely hear a lot of that
Christina Lewellen 00:37:16
from our tech folks. I'm going to never hear the end of it if I
Christina Lewellen 00:37:20
don't dig a little deeper on this role that you're creating,
Christina Lewellen 00:37:23
because I think so many schools are really struggling in the
Christina Lewellen 00:37:27
data and data analysis space. So I gotta back you up there. I
Christina Lewellen 00:37:31
mean, like, how in the world did you get this where'd this idea
Christina Lewellen 00:37:35
come from? Did you have to, like, sacrifice a goat and
Christina Lewellen 00:37:39
convince somebody to do it, where was the energy around
Christina Lewellen 00:37:43
this? And then, in particular, to keep it separated from the
Christina Lewellen 00:37:47
roles that data people traditionally fill in schools.
Christina Lewellen 00:37:51
So can you walk us through a little bit of that? If you don't
Christina Lewellen 00:37:54
mind? I mean,
Ray Shay 00:37:55
one of the biggest reasons I came to Brooklyn
Ray Shay 00:37:57
friends is we have an amazing Head of School, and Chrissy is
Ray Shay 00:38:00
never afraid to create a new position or a different position
Ray Shay 00:38:04
than other schools are creating, right so we have on our
Ray Shay 00:38:08
leadership team many roles that you won't see on other
Ray Shay 00:38:11
leadership teams, and this position in partnership with
Ray Shay 00:38:15
her, it just became very apparent that We needed this
Ray Shay 00:38:20
institutionally. We needed someone who was going to have a
Ray Shay 00:38:23
little bit more of an elevated role and could partner with me
Ray Shay 00:38:26
to make sure that we were able to reach all the different data
Ray Shay 00:38:32
points within the school and work on those, data integrity,
Ray Shay 00:38:36
data security, integration, automation, lead scheduling, but
Ray Shay 00:38:42
not be the person that has to do scheduling all by themselves, as
Ray Shay 00:38:45
oftentimes that happens lead a registrar, but not have to do
Ray Shay 00:38:49
all of the transcript requests and parent access requests that
Ray Shay 00:38:54
typically make it that reporting and analytics and forward
Ray Shay 00:38:59
thinking and visioning of data lakes and building our own
Ray Shay 00:39:03
dashboards, and that gets put to the side always right, because
Ray Shay 00:39:07
there's operational things, and so having someone else who can
Ray Shay 00:39:11
partner with me at that intersection of vision and
Ray Shay 00:39:14
strategy and operationalized experience and push us and serve
Ray Shay 00:39:20
the entire school, right? And be someone who's a thought partner
Ray Shay 00:39:23
in all of the different offices, it became quickly a priority.
Ray Shay 00:39:27
And I have to thank Chrissy for believing, you know, this was
Ray Shay 00:39:31
something I thought we needed, and she's someone already wound
Ray Shay 00:39:35
for that. And by the way, also a former Speech and Debate
Ray Shay 00:39:39
competitor, a debater out of Newark, New Jersey, and so I
Ray Shay 00:39:42
think she can see very quickly the importance of this role
Ray Shay 00:39:47
that's
Christina Lewellen 00:39:47
really impressive. I know that schools
Christina Lewellen 00:39:50
are starting to get interested in this and try to figure out
Christina Lewellen 00:39:54
how to actually get it done, but to create that kind of space,
Christina Lewellen 00:39:57
whatever you call it, to do some of this high. Level, data,
Christina Lewellen 00:40:01
informed decision making. My last question on this is, what's
Christina Lewellen 00:40:07
at the top of your wish list? Like, okay, you get this person
Christina Lewellen 00:40:09
in, you get someone who's super brilliant. What is the first
Christina Lewellen 00:40:13
path or journey you send them on? So
Ray Shay 00:40:17
one thing that's been really interesting in seeing the
Ray Shay 00:40:19
different resumes that come in. Or, like, what kind of like,
Ray Shay 00:40:22
micro credentials do people have? Some people have degrees
Ray Shay 00:40:26
in data systems, but a lot of it you're coming in with, oh, I
Ray Shay 00:40:29
have this recent certification in artificial intelligence and
Ray Shay 00:40:33
data systems, or I have this recent data visualization and
Ray Shay 00:40:38
business systems micro credentials. So it's really
Ray Shay 00:40:41
interesting to see different people coming in with different
Ray Shay 00:40:45
perspectives, but also different credentialing. And some of it
Ray Shay 00:40:49
has me in the back of my mind, going, Okay, if it's not this
Ray Shay 00:40:51
person, I do want them to go down the path of whoever's in
Ray Shay 00:40:55
this role of getting that credential, or going down the
Ray Shay 00:40:58
path of doing that type of training or that type of PD to
Ray Shay 00:41:02
get us to where we are. So the first step, I think, is getting
Ray Shay 00:41:06
this person on board with not just our vision here at school,
Ray Shay 00:41:10
but also with what's going on in industry, and not just in
Ray Shay 00:41:16
education, but what else is being done where places are
Ray Shay 00:41:20
putting maybe more money into data analysis and data
Ray Shay 00:41:23
visualization, and kind of learn from those spaces and help craft
Ray Shay 00:41:27
together what that next year plan is going to be. I want to
Ray Shay 00:41:32
give space for this person to also co author with me, what are
Ray Shay 00:41:36
the next things that we should be doing as a school to really
Ray Shay 00:41:40
push our institution forward and have tech be serving that
Ray Shay 00:41:44
mission and vision. I
Christina Lewellen 00:41:46
mean, guys like, if you got this dropped in
Christina Lewellen 00:41:49
your lap, Bill and Hiram, if you suddenly found yourself with a
Christina Lewellen 00:41:52
part time Assistant Director for Data wizardry, what would be the
Christina Lewellen 00:41:56
first thing you would ask them to do?
Bill Stites 00:41:59
I think that's the other piece of this, in terms of
Bill Stites 00:42:04
identifying the questions that need to be asked. Because I
Bill Stites 00:42:09
think what ends up happening a lot of times is everyone's got
Bill Stites 00:42:13
like, oh, I would love to see the data around this or this or
Bill Stites 00:42:15
this. But is that question mission aligned? Is that
Bill Stites 00:42:19
question going to answer a bigger question related to
Bill Stites 00:42:23
either your strategic plan or your underlying missions or an
Bill Stites 00:42:27
underlying project that's going on. So understanding how those
Bill Stites 00:42:31
approvals happen in terms of where you're going to direct
Bill Stites 00:42:34
that person, I think, is very interesting. But first and
Bill Stites 00:42:39
foremost, the thing I'd be interested in is what is your
Bill Stites 00:42:42
number one priority at the school, and get them focused on
Bill Stites 00:42:45
how data can inform and help guide work in that area. So it's
Bill Stites 00:42:51
not any one thing, because I think with every school it's
Bill Stites 00:42:54
going to be different, but you have to really line all of those
Bill Stites 00:42:58
pieces up, look at what's the one main thing and get them
Bill Stites 00:43:01
going there. Otherwise they're going to get caught on all these
Bill Stites 00:43:04
little side projects that are going to answer these little
Bill Stites 00:43:08
questions that may help someone with this one thing, but aren't
Bill Stites 00:43:11
really advancing the overall mission. And that's what I
Bill Stites 00:43:14
think, is where I would focus that work and try to help define
Bill Stites 00:43:17
that with them.
Unknown 00:43:19
The only thing
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:20
I would add. And it really struck me, Ray, when
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:22
you said you wanted to give this position space, I was really
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:27
captivated by your use of that term, because all too often we
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:31
layer upon these new positions, lots and lots of scut, the stuff
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:37
that nobody wants to do. And we all know the phrase, it all
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:41
rolls downhill. And I think what I would do in my particular
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:45
case, if this was my baby, it would be to protect this person
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:52
to the point where I have the governance in place so that we
Hiram Cuevas 00:43:58
have the capacity to talk about survey design, to talk about
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:03
data privacy, to talk about what's the retention of the data
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:08
that we are collecting. I had a really interesting experience
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:13
last week. I had a student who's doing a capstone project who is
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:18
giving out these surveys, and he asked another IB SC school out
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:23
in Australia, and the head pushed back because he asked all
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:28
of these different questions about data. And so the faculty
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:32
sponsor reached out to me and said, Can you help with this?
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:36
And we started talking about the Australian Privacy Principles,
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:40
which are different than GDP are, which are different than
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:43
here in the States, because it's by state as opposed to a
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:46
national system. And so it's so big, what Ray's position is
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:52
essentially going to incorporate into the school that to go fast,
Hiram Cuevas 00:44:57
you got to go slow, and you really. Really need to protect
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:01
this person such that you can truly stick to what Bill would
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:04
say, What's mission critical? Does it fulfill the mission but
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:08
also satisfy all the other things that we're trying to do
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:11
with data governance, privacy, the incorporation of AI, all of
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:15
those different things, because schools are sloppy with this
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:19
stuff when you're hearing people talk about data lakes and data
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:25
warehouses, you start to realize we have these addicts that
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:29
aren't very structured and very organized, and we're having to
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:32
do a lot of cleanup, and that is going to take a tremendous
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:36
amount of time, because then you've got to deal with school
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:39
culture, because people are used to doing things a certain way,
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:43
and so I would say, go slow to go fast and focus on the data
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:47
governance and the cultural shifts that are undoubtedly
Hiram Cuevas 00:45:51
going to happen at your school.
Ray Shay 00:45:54
That's so true. Hiram, thank you so much for that. You
Ray Shay 00:45:57
know, one thing in like building a team I took from my previous
Ray Shay 00:46:01
head is these little weekly digital check ins that can
Ray Shay 00:46:06
inform our one on ones, and the platform that I used at my
Ray Shay 00:46:10
previous school stand out that EDP now bought. So not sure if
Ray Shay 00:46:14
small teams can use it very much anymore. But in addition to it
Ray Shay 00:46:18
giving a strength of assessment so that you know everybody on
Ray Shay 00:46:21
your team what their two biggest strengths are, and get kind of
Ray Shay 00:46:25
like individual coaching tips on how to work with this person or
Ray Shay 00:46:29
who go to for what I love, that it had a quick, you know, the
Ray Shay 00:46:33
same way we'd have our students maybe do a fist to five, get a
Ray Shay 00:46:36
quick pulse, you know. How are you doing today? Is it a
Ray Shay 00:46:39
terrible day? Is a great day, these little two minute check
Ray Shay 00:46:42
ins, what did you love this week? What did you load this
Ray Shay 00:46:46
week? What are your priorities? And how can I help? And those
Ray Shay 00:46:50
four things are so helpful, and I hope that with this new
Ray Shay 00:46:53
position, that I'll quickly hear those things that they load and
Ray Shay 00:46:57
can figure out, how do we solve those things so that we can
Ray Shay 00:47:01
protect those things that they love, and that the things that
Ray Shay 00:47:04
are the priorities for our school. And that's what I think
Ray Shay 00:47:08
an evolution of our tech role is doing exactly that is making
Ray Shay 00:47:12
sure that our team is not just structured in the best way, but
Ray Shay 00:47:16
as you put it, Hiram, that they're all protected and
Ray Shay 00:47:19
empowered to do the great job that we're actually hiring them
Ray Shay 00:47:23
to do.
Christina Lewellen 00:47:24
Absolutely so as we draw to a close and
Christina Lewellen 00:47:27
we're kind of running out of time with you, Ray, I have to
Christina Lewellen 00:47:30
bring up the fact that in 2022 you were the New Jersey Speech
Christina Lewellen 00:47:36
and Debate lead Coach of the Year. Pretty cool. So clearly,
Christina Lewellen 00:47:39
you're pretty awesome at that, but I read deeper into your bio,
Christina Lewellen 00:47:43
and I recognize something that I see in myself, and that is that
Christina Lewellen 00:47:47
you have a ton of kids, and so I would love to think that you're
Christina Lewellen 00:47:53
just very, very skilled with the whole speech and debate, and I'm
Christina Lewellen 00:47:56
sure you are, but I think that my speech and debate skills are
Christina Lewellen 00:48:00
honed by the fact that I have four daughters between the ages
Christina Lewellen 00:48:03
of 19 and 23 you have five kids and four pets. So that's a lot
Christina Lewellen 00:48:08
of chaos. Is that why you're so good at Speech and Debate?
Ray Shay 00:48:14
That might be. How old are your kids? I have 520, 1812,
Ray Shay 00:48:20
10 and eight, two girls, three boys. But I would say, probably
Ray Shay 00:48:24
more importantly than that, my wife is a Pennsylvania High
Ray Shay 00:48:28
School Speech and Debate League Hall of Famer, so I don't have
Ray Shay 00:48:31
that on my resume.
Christina Lewellen 00:48:33
Okay, we need to get your wife on the
Christina Lewellen 00:48:34
pod. So Ray, you lose every argument, exactly.
Bill Stites 00:48:42
Debating, having another kid you've lost multiple
Bill Stites 00:48:44
times.
Christina Lewellen 00:48:47
I feel like we need to get Ray and his wife
Christina Lewellen 00:48:51
and maybe a couple of their kids on a pod and just like, launch
Christina Lewellen 00:48:55
them and just see what happens. Is this what your dinners are
Christina Lewellen 00:48:59
like every night?
Ray Shay 00:49:00
Oh yes, they are eventful.
Christina Lewellen 00:49:03
Do they have a favorite category of debate?
Ray Shay 00:49:05
Definitely tech time, usage
Christina Lewellen 00:49:10
free time. That's awesome. That's very
Christina Lewellen 00:49:14
cool. Well, Ray, I'm so glad that you were able to join us
Christina Lewellen 00:49:17
and spend this much time with us. It's been such a pleasure to
Christina Lewellen 00:49:20
get to know you, and I am so glad that you finally got to an
Christina Lewellen 00:49:23
atlas conference. I hope we continue to see you every year
Christina Lewellen 00:49:27
Absolutely. Obviously, it's a very special gathering of our
Christina Lewellen 00:49:30
friends, and you are one of them. So I hope that you get to
Christina Lewellen 00:49:33
join us next year we're going to be in Columbus, Ohio, so
Christina Lewellen 00:49:36
hopefully no massive trips in and out of New York for that
Christina Lewellen 00:49:40
one. I can't wait. Awesome. Thanks so much.
Peter Frank 00:49:44
This has been talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:49:47
produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in
Peter Frank 00:49:50
Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas and
Peter Frank 00:49:53
Atlas membership, please visit theatlas.org if you enjoyed this
Peter Frank 00:49:58
discussion, please subscribe. I. Leave a review and share this
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Peter Frank 00:50:04
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