Strategies for Influence and Career Growth in Independent Schools

Peter Frank 00:00:02
Phil, welcome to Talking Technology with ATLIS,

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 Lewellen,

Christina Lewellen 00:00:25
Hello everyone, and welcome back to

Christina Lewellen 00:00:26
talking technology with Atlas. I'm Kristina Lewellen, the

Christina Lewellen 00:00:29
President and CEO of the Association of Technology

Christina Lewellen 00:00:32
Leaders in Independent

Bill Stites 00:00:33
Schools. And I am Bill Stites, the Director of

Bill Stites 00:00:36
Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New

Bill Stites 00:00:39
Jersey.

Hiram Cuevas 00:00:40
And I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information

Hiram Cuevas 00:00:42
Systems and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in

Hiram Cuevas 00:00:45
Richmond, Virginia.

Christina Lewellen 00:00:47
Hello, gentlemen, and welcome. Finally,

Christina Lewellen 00:00:50
to the end of January, we're dating our recording, and I

Christina Lewellen 00:00:54
don't care, because this has been a very long month indeed.

Christina Lewellen 00:00:58
We're going to get to our guests super fast, but I want to start

Christina Lewellen 00:01:01
today and ask you to please tell me something good, because this

Christina Lewellen 00:01:05
month has been a long one. So please, Bill, tell me something

Christina Lewellen 00:01:07
good.

Bill Stites 00:01:08
I got something because you already dated us.

Bill Stites 00:01:10
I'm gonna say it, and I'm gonna upset a lot of people, I'm sure.

Bill Stites 00:01:14
Oh no,

Christina Lewellen 00:01:15
if you talk about football, go birds.

Bill Stites 00:01:20
Go birds, eagles, bleeding green till the day I

Bill Stites 00:01:24
die. Let's go. Let's beat the chief baby.

Unknown 00:01:27
Grease the poles in the city. Reach

Unknown 00:01:29
them up. Since

Christina Lewellen 00:01:30
we're recording this ahead of the

Christina Lewellen 00:01:32
Super Bowl, I definitely root for pretty much anybody who's

Christina Lewellen 00:01:35
got the ball. I think it's a very impressive sport. And so

Christina Lewellen 00:01:37
whoever's offense, I'm all about that team, but I do like the

Christina Lewellen 00:01:41
chiefs, as does my husband, even though his granddad played for

Christina Lewellen 00:01:44
the Packers. See, that's not allowed. I know, I know I'm a

Christina Lewellen 00:01:49
fair weather football and I grew up in Buffalo, so like, dude,

Christina Lewellen 00:01:52
like, I'm all sorts of mixed up. No, you can't like the chiefs,

Christina Lewellen 00:01:56
but I think that we need to make a bet right now on the pod,

Christina Lewellen 00:01:59
because we're recording on january 30. Here we go. If the

Christina Lewellen 00:02:02
Chiefs win, I expect you to step onto the main stage at the Atlas

Christina Lewellen 00:02:07
conference in a chief shirt.

Bill Stites 00:02:09
No, nope. Come on. Oh no, that never happened. God,

Bill Stites 00:02:13
no, never. What's

Christina Lewellen 00:02:15
the matter? Bill, you you don't believe in

Christina Lewellen 00:02:16
the birds. You don't think they're gonna win. I

Bill Stites 00:02:18
do, but my wife wants to buy balloons to

Bill Stites 00:02:21
decorate the house for a party. I will not let her bring

Bill Stites 00:02:24
balloons into the house. Of both themes. I'm like, you're not

Bill Stites 00:02:27
allowed to do it. I'd have to turn in my Philly card, and

Bill Stites 00:02:30
there's no way I'm doing that. Sorry, that's the bet that

Bill Stites 00:02:37
somebody that actually doesn't watch or follow football. That's

Bill Stites 00:02:41
the bet you kind of make. No no, Hiram, I

Christina Lewellen 00:02:44
need a tie breaker here. I feel like Bill

Christina Lewellen 00:02:45
won't take my bet because I would have stood up with a bird

Christina Lewellen 00:02:48
shirt on if they won. Yeah, but

Bill Stites 00:02:50
you don't care. You're from Buffalo and you're

Bill Stites 00:02:52
rooting for the chiefs. I mean seriously, and you've got, like,

Bill Stites 00:02:54
family blood, stop.

Hiram Cuevas 00:02:57
I'm gonna kind of go with Bill on this one. You

Hiram Cuevas 00:02:59
know, he's a die hard fan. Thank you, Hiram. And the only reason

Hiram Cuevas 00:03:05
I say that is because my son is a die hard Chicago Bears fan.

Hiram Cuevas 00:03:11
And I mean, talk about a walloping for years and years

Hiram Cuevas 00:03:15
and years, and he is still wearing his bears regalia, and

Hiram Cuevas 00:03:20
he will not switch, no matter what

Christina Lewellen 00:03:23
not happening. All right. Well, for

Christina Lewellen 00:03:25
the hardcore podcast listeners, whoever wins the Super Bowl,

Christina Lewellen 00:03:28
I'll make sure that I at least wear a suit of that color on the

Christina Lewellen 00:03:31
stage at the Atlas conference.

Bill Stites 00:03:33
Me and Kylie Kelsea, we won't put it on. We

Bill Stites 00:03:35
were talking about that before the pod. She won't do it. It's a

Bill Stites 00:03:38
sport. Travis, I won't, Nope, not gonna

Christina Lewellen 00:03:39
do it. All right, I respect your stance.

Christina Lewellen 00:03:41
Well, with that, it is time for us to welcome our guests to the

Christina Lewellen 00:03:45
show. Today, we have Gabe Lucas with us. Gabe is a long time

Christina Lewellen 00:03:49
friend of the pod and also a founder of Atlas, but we invite

Christina Lewellen 00:03:53
Gabe here today in his capacity leading 12 M and Ed Tech

Christina Lewellen 00:03:56
recruiting, he heads up some of the coolest searches that are in

Christina Lewellen 00:03:59
our space, and I thought it would be really awesome to bring

Christina Lewellen 00:04:02
him here and talk about what's going on in the technology

Christina Lewellen 00:04:05
leader hiring landscape Gabe, welcome to the pod. Thank you.

Christina Lewellen 00:04:10
And before we get kicked off, do you have an opinion about this

Christina Lewellen 00:04:13
football nonsense?

Gabriel Lucas 00:04:15
Well, I'm out in California, so it's been

Gabriel Lucas 00:04:18
actually a disappointing Super Bowl. I'm sorry, can't root for

Gabriel Lucas 00:04:22
either team, basically rooting for a tie.

Unknown 00:04:25
Ah, that's not how that goes.

Gabriel Lucas 00:04:27
But I do think if you stand behind your team, you

Gabriel Lucas 00:04:30
have to be willing to put out another team's jacket. So I'm

Gabriel Lucas 00:04:33
gonna actually go on your side. Kristina, on the back. Yes,

Gabriel Lucas 00:04:37
Gabe,

Christina Lewellen 00:04:38
I love you. Thank you so much. I'm telling

Christina Lewellen 00:04:41
you, I'm coming with a chief. I'm gonna bring Richards chief

Christina Lewellen 00:04:44
gear with me to Atlas. All right, so Gabe, thank you for

Christina Lewellen 00:04:48
joining us, and I'm really excited to kind of dive right in

Christina Lewellen 00:04:51
with you. If we could, I think a lot of people know you. But for

Christina Lewellen 00:04:54
newer listeners who are coming into our community, and there

Christina Lewellen 00:04:56
are quite a few of them, could you please introduce your.

Christina Lewellen 00:05:00
Yourself. Give us a little background on you and your firm.

Christina Lewellen 00:05:03
Yeah,

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:03
so, I mean, I've been a part of the educational

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:05
community for about 20 plus years. I worked in higher ed. I

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:09
did work in a couple of independent schools out in

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:11
California. Ran technology departments back in 2014 Stuart

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:17
Kelsea and I came together and founded Atlas. Was a great

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:21
journey, still is, and out of that came just a realization, a

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:25
passion and sort of an idea for helping schools hire for

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:28
leadership roles in technology. So we started the firm, or I

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:32
started the firm as Ed Tech recruiting, and that was our

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:35
main focus, and really our only focus, and we still do that to

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:39
this day, but we also expand it to all areas, the heads cabinet

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:43
and now help schools hire leadership roles across the

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:46
board. And I think our trajectory sort of mirrors where

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:50
the industry has gone and that 1015, 20 years ago, you had to

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:54
have the technology expert, and you still do, but it was sort of

Gabriel Lucas 00:05:58
seemed like, well, everybody else can just be technology

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:01
phobic or technology uneducated or disinterested, as long as we

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:07
had a quote, tech person on our hiring leadership team, whatnot,

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:11
we're okay. But, you know, now there's sort of a blended

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:14
approach that's, I think, an exciting sort of where things

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:17
are headed, and it's where we've headed so that now we're running

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:20
a lot of searches that bring or fuse technology into other roles

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:24
and vice versa, and that's been great to see as there's now a

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:27
realization that high technology acumen is not just supposed to

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:33
be in one person. It really is responsibility of the entire

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:37
leadership team or the entire school to understand that these

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:40
are important issues affecting everybody. I

Christina Lewellen 00:06:42
love it. And Gabe, what is kind of the lay of

Christina Lewellen 00:06:45
the land lately? Like, what are you seeing in the hiring market?

Christina Lewellen 00:06:49
What are schools sort of looking for, and is it changing?

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:52
It is. And of course, it's also case by case.

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:56
And I'm always sort of reluctant to kind of say, well, there is a

Gabriel Lucas 00:06:59
fad or a trend, or like everybody's doing this, but you

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:02
know, I'd be derelict in duty if I didn't say things like, cyber

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:06
security are much more important than they were five or six years

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:09
ago. Data strategy is much more important than it was even two

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:14
or three years ago, and the role of a technology leader is, for

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:19
sure, multi faceted. 10 years ago, when I was starting to do

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:24
this work and really explain to schools the complexity of

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:27
technology hiring, I talked about three areas of technology

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:31
instructional and IT and data systems in the middle, and that

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:35
was sort of revolutionary, like it used to be just it and Ed

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:38
Tech, right? And I think people got that, and that's how it is

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:42
today, but it's gone just not exponential, but it's certainly

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:46
gone far beyond those three prongs, and you have technology

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:51
leaders taking on major aspects of business operations because

Gabriel Lucas 00:07:56
they can think system minded. They can step into managing

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:01
functional units campus operations. But then you also

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:04
have technology leaders expand into roles like chief academic

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:08
officer and hive assistant head of school for Teaching and

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:12
Learning with a huge emphasis on technology. So that's been great

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:17
to see. Then we step back from all that. My advice very quickly

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:22
is that schools should define roles that are right for them.

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:26
It's so easy to do the copycat mentality they're putting in

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:29
smart boards. So should we? They're going one to one. So

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:32
should we, we saw that cycle decades and decades ago. What

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:37
I'm seeing now is there's a almost a comfort level of let's

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:42
define it for ourselves. We worked at the school last year,

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:46
they were all in to design and maker, and so for them, the

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:50
technology position had to just be totally interconnected with

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:54
that area of pedagogy and learning. But that's not right

Gabriel Lucas 00:08:57
for everybody, and that's okay. So you go back 20 years ago, it

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:03
was either it ed tech or maybe both, right? And there are sort

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:08
of three flavors. And now it's like, okay, there's a different

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:12
realization that there's so many aspects to what tech and school

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:16
means, and if institutional research is top of the game for

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:21
a school, they're going to define a role much differently

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:23
for one that's going to think about design maker. I mean, it

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:26
sounds so simple, but the realization of heads, that this

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:30
is okay is, I think, finally there, and that's come about,

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:34
going back to my point earlier, of realizing that everybody from

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:39
the head and the board on down, has to have a level of

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:42
understanding of technology so they can dip into this strategic

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:46
planning and not just say, Well, I don't know about it, so I'll

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:49
go hire somebody, and I won't think about it ever again.

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:52
Anyway, that is definitely in the rear view mirror, and that's

Gabriel Lucas 00:09:57
been great to see. So before we kind

Christina Lewellen 00:09:59
of. Pivot over to the annual salary survey

Christina Lewellen 00:10:02
and the resulting compensation report. Your firm and Atlas

Christina Lewellen 00:10:06
partner up and do this report each year to benchmark industry

Christina Lewellen 00:10:10
compensation and benefits. And so we're going to pivot to that,

Christina Lewellen 00:10:13
and it's a big reason why we wanted you to come but I have

Christina Lewellen 00:10:15
one more question, kind of high level for those who aren't

Christina Lewellen 00:10:18
familiar with the model, who does the recruiter work for? Are

Christina Lewellen 00:10:23
you working for the candidates? Are you working for the schools?

Christina Lewellen 00:10:25
How does that work? I'll

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:27
answer the question in two ways. One, what

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:30
we do, but then I'll also say to those that are interested about

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:34
understanding sort of more behind the scenes. You know,

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:37
just different models, right? Who does the travel agent work

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:39
for? They their customer is the person to walk and for that's

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:43
sort of, again, a yes to your industry. But if you remember

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:46
those days, you've worked with the travel agent to book your

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:49
trip. So you the customer, were interfacing with them, but they

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:53
were being honestly paid by the industry, right? They would get

Gabriel Lucas 00:10:56
a some sort of partnership or payment through major travel

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:01
companies. Just thinking about that is a good realization to

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:05
recognize. It's not as simple as it might seem to the naked eye,

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:09
very simple for us, though we are an executive recruiting

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:13
firm, our official status, if you will, is that we're a non

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:17
profit search consulting firm. We're hired by our clients, and

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:21
which are not just schools. We're hired by colleges,

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:24
associations, even some for profit companies. So we get

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:28
hired by a client to run a search on their behalf. We don't

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:33
represent candidates. We don't place people. We're neutral on

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:37
decisions, and I'll even go further, we don't get paid $1

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:40
more if someone has hired external, internal, someone we

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:43
knew or didn't know. So in our little world, at least our

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:46
company, to anybody who will listen, I say, Yeah, we are

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:50
hired by our client. And if you go an agent or a consultant of a

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:54
in this case, say, at school, but we're helping that client

Gabriel Lucas 00:11:57
make decisions, and thus we interface and interact with

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:01
individual applicants, but we don't represent them, and that's

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:04
very important. You know, it cuts both ways in that we're

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:07
neutral on the decision, but we also don't coach people, and we

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:12
don't say, Okay, well, I'm rooting for you, or you're in my

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:15
stable so I'm going to really try to get you placed over

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:19
there, and thus let me fix your documents and tell you what to

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:24
say. And we don't do that. Going back to the travel agent model,

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:28
there are many different types of agents, and some that are

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:31
actually, you know, hired by individuals. Now take the

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:35
sporting world, right? The sporting agent is hired by the

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:37
player, and they're there to advocate, you know, let's take

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:41
our Super Bowl world, right? Like Travis Kelsea might be best

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:44
friends with Tay Tay, but he's still got an agent, and that

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:48
agent is going to act on his behalf and really push the

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:51
employer, Kansas City Chiefs, to do certain things. And that

Gabriel Lucas 00:12:56
person's getting paid by traps. There are plenty of placement

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:00
firms out there, and actually, we all know some of the big ones

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:04
that have this model of, well, we're not paid a dime unless you

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:09
get hired. And they have a very different starting point

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:13
approach, and in a positive way, they are often advocating for

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:17
the individual. They're coaching, they're trying to give

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:21
feedback and they're not an agent or representative of the

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:24
employer. It gets a little murky when some companies, and I won't

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:30
say names, try to do both. They are both placing people and also

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:36
hired as agents or consultants to an employer. And that's where

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:41
I think, if you're an applicant, you really have to understand

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:45
the model you're possibly entering, or like the quote

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:49
search firm that is running or supporting the search, and who's

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:53
paying them, or who represents them or not. And do they do both

Gabriel Lucas 00:13:57
sides sometimes? And in this case, what are they doing? It's

Gabriel Lucas 00:14:00
very complex. So again, our little world, our company, is

Gabriel Lucas 00:14:04
very simple. We act on behalf of schools, and we run searches,

Gabriel Lucas 00:14:08
and we're completely neutral, and we love people to come in

Gabriel Lucas 00:14:11
and apply, but it can feel a little icky sometimes, when

Gabriel Lucas 00:14:16
somebody is thinking about it's going to be one model and it's

Gabriel Lucas 00:14:20
actually another. And I'll just say, you know, that's just the

Gabriel Lucas 00:14:22
way the industry is. But you have to do your homework and not

Gabriel Lucas 00:14:25
just make assumptions all

Unknown 00:14:27
the way throughout. That's really helpful. Thank you

Unknown 00:14:29
for that. That has cleared up

Bill Stites 00:14:32
a lot of ideas questions that I've had floating

Bill Stites 00:14:35
around about this. You know, being someone who has directed

Bill Stites 00:14:38
people to your site when I know that they've been looking and so

Bill Stites 00:14:41
on and so forth. But when it comes to the salary survey,

Bill Stites 00:14:46
we're all filling it out. I know how I use it. I'll fill it out,

Bill Stites 00:14:50
I'll look at it, and then I'll benchmark myself and just see

Bill Stites 00:14:52
where I am at this point. I've been in the game for quite a

Bill Stites 00:14:55
while, so I know generally where I will fall so on and so forth.

Bill Stites 00:14:58
Or if I'm talking. To somebody, whether it's through the ALI

Bill Stites 00:15:02
program or somebody locally, you know, I'll have them reference

Bill Stites 00:15:06
that. So if they're starting a search in general areas, what

Bill Stites 00:15:09
they can do to get an idea of where things may stand from that

Bill Stites 00:15:13
perspective, but turning this on you in a way of somebody who's

Bill Stites 00:15:18
administering this and then working with Atlas to kind of

Bill Stites 00:15:21
crunch all the numbers. How do you, as the person who has the

Bill Stites 00:15:25
firm, I know how I use it. I know how Hiram probably uses it.

Bill Stites 00:15:29
How do you use that data in the work that you're doing, whether

Bill Stites 00:15:33
that's on the school's behalf? How are you putting that into

Bill Stites 00:15:36
play? It's a

Gabriel Lucas 00:15:37
great question, and that's just it, like, how

Gabriel Lucas 00:15:40
each person uses it, I think, is a little bit different. And

Gabriel Lucas 00:15:43
that's what's so great about the person who is trying to seek a

Gabriel Lucas 00:15:46
job might have one objective function. The person who's in a

Gabriel Lucas 00:15:50
job trying to benchmark or see if they're raises or

Gabriel Lucas 00:15:53
commensurate, or if they're, shall I say, under market value,

Gabriel Lucas 00:15:57
that's an important thing. How we use it is very simple and,

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:01
quite frankly, very straightforward. The one and

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:04
pretty much only time I need to think about salary is when a

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:08
client has engaged us to say, hey, we're going to run a

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:11
search, and we work with them to figure out director of ed tech

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:14
or CIO or Information Systems Manager, whatever it might be.

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:19
Well, the obvious question, what should the salary be? And that's

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:23
a very simple question with a difficult either answer or just

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:28
requires a lot of analysis and thought. So that's the way I use

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:32
it is to help our clients figure out how to position or post a

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:37
salary range that is reasonable. Now I should emphasize help our

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:42
clients. It's not my decision what the salary is, and so I can

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:46
only do so much to say to a client, well, this is what I

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:49
think market rates are. This is where others who are. You know

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:53
the person who has a portfolio of what you're looking for. You

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:56
know the person who manages a team of eight, oversees all

Gabriel Lucas 00:16:59
areas of technology, working in a 1200 person school, they're

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:03
making x. Now you only seem to want to pay y, and y is less

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:09
than x. So, you know, do we have a problem? Well, I mean, it's

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:12
more like it's going to be a bit of a challenging search, because

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:15
the people you're looking for are up in the X land. So I'm

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:19
going to give you more than you bargain for again, we our

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:21
contracts and our little firm, they're fixed costs. So I mean,

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:25
we literally are just paid a fixed fee to help our clients

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:28
run great searches. I have no skin in the game personally, to

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:32
raise the salary so I'll make more money. Yes, certain firms

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:36
do pay a percentage or get a percentage, and that's cool, but

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:39
that's not our model. I don't want to look like I'm trying to

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:42
jack the seller up so I get more money. So the advice I'm trying

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:46
to give our clients is truly a market trip. Look, you're

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:49
looking for the X people. You only want to pay y. We're going

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:52
to have to figure out, like, well, maybe we got to pull a

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:55
different lever. Are you willing to let the Y person work one day

Gabriel Lucas 00:17:59
from home? Are you willing to maybe rethink the scope of the

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:03
job in such a way that part of those duties will go elsewhere?

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:06
Are you willing to get a little creative on relocation or

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:10
vacation or something? So if not, that salary analysis tells

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:15
me this is going to be a challenging search, and tells

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:17
the client, I don't know if you're going to identify the

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:20
right people that you're looking for. So it's very important,

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:23
very helpful to us in that very specific case. But I would just

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:27
say to others, there's a lot of reasons to use it, and I hope

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:30
you explore it and leverage it, because I think it helps make

Gabriel Lucas 00:18:33
better decision making across the board. That's

Christina Lewellen 00:18:37
so interesting, Gabe, and that

Christina Lewellen 00:18:38
actually leads me into some of what we saw in this year's data.

Christina Lewellen 00:18:42
We'll get into some of the specifics on the salary side,

Christina Lewellen 00:18:44
but first, I just want to ask for your feedback on this. In

Christina Lewellen 00:18:48
our executive findings, our executive summary findings, we

Christina Lewellen 00:18:52
have started asking about overall job satisfaction. And

Christina Lewellen 00:18:56
the data which was collected in late 2024 compared to the same

Christina Lewellen 00:19:01
data in 2023 there's some concerning dips in overall

Christina Lewellen 00:19:05
satisfaction. So in last year's data, we asked technology

Christina Lewellen 00:19:10
leaders to kind of rate overall their job satisfaction, and it

Christina Lewellen 00:19:13
was at 92% okay, that's pretty healthy, right? It dipped down

Christina Lewellen 00:19:18
to 83% this year, not a surprise. And then we asked

Christina Lewellen 00:19:22
about the respondent satisfaction with their work

Christina Lewellen 00:19:25
environment. Like, specifically, like, how's your work

Christina Lewellen 00:19:27
environment? That dropped from 89% to 79% so across every

Christina Lewellen 00:19:33
measure, even at the very bottom end of the spectrum, Gabe, like

Christina Lewellen 00:19:37
the career advancement opportunities, we asked about

Christina Lewellen 00:19:39
that last year compared to this year last year, asking about

Christina Lewellen 00:19:42
career advancement opportunities, they reported a

Christina Lewellen 00:19:45
62% satisfaction rate. This year it dipped all the way down to

Christina Lewellen 00:19:49
41% and finally, I just want you to reflect on with flexibility,

Christina Lewellen 00:19:55
asking about that aspect of satisfaction, last year's data

Christina Lewellen 00:19:58
gave us a 53% so. Satisfaction rate this year, we're down to

Christina Lewellen 00:20:02
30% when it comes to flexibility. Your thoughts on

Christina Lewellen 00:20:06
that? Well,

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:07
I guess I'll give thoughts that have a silver

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:10
lining, mindset that maybe actually brings a sort of a

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:14
negative or a bummer, which is that across the board, these are

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:19
the trends. In other words, if you had asked me to do a similar

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:23
survey around like division heads, because we do a lot of

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:26
academic searches, it's probably about the same. These are roles

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:30
that are just getting more frustrating, harder to run. The

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:34
To Do list is going up and up and up. The expectations that

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:39
you know someone be the magician or the ace of all trades. Forget

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:43
even Jack, right? It's really trending, I think, a little bit

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:46
in the wrong direction. Now, I don't want to be a complete

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:49
Negative Nelly, and I think there are silver linings on the

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:52
positive side, but just to step back, I think it's helpful to

Gabriel Lucas 00:20:55
know that there's just a difficulty in school leadership

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:01
positions across the board. We're working with NAIS and I

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:04
case and other organizations on just like leadership pipelines.

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:08
I just gave a session last week, and people are just staying on

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:11
the sidelines. They're stepping out. It's challenging. So the

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:15
point there, number one, is just, I think there's comfort in

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:19
a shared recognition that running schools is hard. I think

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:24
the technology position, as we talked earlier, because it's no

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:27
longer society or ed tech, and it has so many aspects to it,

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:31
from AI and cyber, just take those two things right? There

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:35
are these frontiers of desired exploration at the board level,

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:42
all the way down to the teacher level. I mean, 25 years ago, how

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:46
many people in schools were just talking about, like, Apple 2e

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:49
even knew what that was, other than the six people were in some

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:52
locked room. So now you have everybody talking about these

Gabriel Lucas 00:21:56
trends and looking for the expert to get a sense of, like,

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:01
you know, where are we headed and where should we be? And that

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:04
just, I think, puts a lot of strain. So we have to go educate

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:08
the larger industry to realize, like, the technology position

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:12
has so many components to it. And let's go back to

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:16
compensation. If you want somebody really good, you need

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:19
to recognize that this is as critical as your CFO. You know,

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:24
my little soap box is that it's a little disappointing that I

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:28
think schools are still trying to say, well, we have the head

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:32
and the CFO and the advancement person and admission, so they're

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:36
bringing the dollars, but the tech person is like, one notch

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:39
down. We got to realize this person is as important, if not

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:45
more, than some of those other roles. So I don't want to get

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:48
into what is more important, not but the recognition of value.

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:52
The irony is, there are a lot of people who want these jobs.

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:55
These are exciting roles, but then you know things like, is

Gabriel Lucas 00:22:59
the salary really commensurate or not, are the expectations

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:02
commensurate? And then the burnout? There's a lot of

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:05
burnout. And we run searches where there can be these

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:09
exciting, 345, year turnarounds, and that's okay, what both sides

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:15
recognize. Hey, if you're willing to say, come in and work

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:19
hard, this can Springboard or something great, and a lot of

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:22
schools don't feel they need a 20 year person to stay. So if

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:26
you're burning out, it's almost like, to me, time to think about

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:28
another role. But I just want our industry to recognize the

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:32
value of these positions a bit more than it does, and I hope

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:35
this salary survey moves the needle there. But I think we

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:38
have to do a better job educating non technology school

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:42
leaders that you're asking for a lot you need to recognize the

Gabriel Lucas 00:23:46
value of who you're bringing in. Gabe,

Hiram Cuevas 00:23:49
I'm really pleased to hear that you mentioned that

Hiram Cuevas 00:23:52
tech leaders should be in the same ballpark as some of these

Hiram Cuevas 00:23:55
other leadership positions. I mean, I think about some of the

Hiram Cuevas 00:23:59
compliance issues alone that provide such tremendous risk to

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:04
our institutions, by itself, the number of times you have to deal

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:08
with attorneys and dealing with contracts, etc, that impact the

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:13
entire school, not just say, a division or a department, is

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:18
quite vast. My question for you is within the salary survey, you

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:24
mentioned that there's an undervaluing perhaps at some

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:27
schools about their tech leaders in terms of the salaries. What

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:31
is your perception about the overall landscape of tech

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:35
leaders within the survey in terms of where they're

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:38
positioned with respect to other senior leadership positions at

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:43
their schools?

Unknown 00:24:44
Yeah, it's a great question.

Gabriel Lucas 00:24:46
I think a lot of that comes to the function of

Gabriel Lucas 00:24:48
the head. I mean, what I've seen just in my 10 years of work is

Gabriel Lucas 00:24:51
that if the Head of School sees the high value of this position,

Gabriel Lucas 00:24:56
they are going to bring that position into the even the upper

Gabriel Lucas 00:24:59
eche. Law The Executive Cabinet, they're gonna run a search, and

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:04
I'm not trying to put any clients under the bus, but I

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:07
mean some heads lean into working with us even more

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:11
because they're like, I know, like, this is gonna make or

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:13
break my school in the next five or six years. And what I also

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:17
like is when they sort of don't know this, what they're telling

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:21
themselves is okay, but I gotta lean into this area. I'm not

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:25
gonna just, like, push a button and like, Wait for five people

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:28
to show up and I'll pick one of them. And like, no, like, this

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:31
is hard work to get the community to recognize how

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:35
critical this role is. So the status of the position is number

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:39
one, a function of where the head sees it. You just have to

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:42
call a spade a spade there. I think other things can play a

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:45
role, but I think the technology professional is probably the

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:49
number two like, in other words, they themselves can self

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:53
advocate, but in that proper way. And I mean, look, I've been

Gabriel Lucas 00:25:57
in this industry. I've been a tech director. We love to flock

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:00
together. So like Atlas, to me, was like finding our peace. It

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:05
brought a group together that was connected virtually in some

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:08
ways. But like now, we have a professional association. We

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:12
have to go out in the world and evangelize, if you will. In

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:15
other words, the interconnectedness that we have

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:17
to do is to be more present, for example, at conferences that are

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:23
non technology. I'm not saying don't go to Atlas. And then when

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:27
you get those people coming to Atlas, I don't want non

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:31
technology senior leaders to sort of see this as like, well,

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:35
I don't need to know this. And I got somebody here who's doing

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:39
it, and they had the little pond, and I have my pond, and

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:44
we'll just do our thing, like, that's not going to lead to a

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:50
recognition that the issues that we're talking about are relevant

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:54
for everybody. So like, when I see Atlas putting on a think

Gabriel Lucas 00:26:57
about cyber or I saw an email and it was this morning, right?

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:00
Like, you know who owns your data, they happen to come in my

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:03
inbox today, I would argue more non tech people should be in

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:08
that session or listening than tech people. In other words, an

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:12
interesting little analysis would be if 95% of people who

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:15
show up are tech professionals, that's actually bad, or that's

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:20
good in some way, but it's leaving a whole slice of the pie

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:24
out, and whose responsibility is that, I think that has to be

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:27
with the tech director, the CIO, to bring along people to not

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:32
accept things like, Oh, well, you go do that, and I'll go do

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:35
this. No, no, you're all doing data. You're all using it. You

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:40
need to hear this. I remember when I was in the school, like,

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:43
I just sort of got almost not jealous, but I was, like, I got

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:47
percolatingly Excited by like, what my CFO is doing. Oh, my

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:50
God, she's talking to a lawyer. I want to talk to a lawyer. How

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:54
cool, right? Like, I'm not a CFO, but I want to hear what

Gabriel Lucas 00:27:58
they're talking about. We have to do that too. That's the next

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:02
level. And like I said, yes, the head plays a role in the stature

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:06
the tech person, but the tech professional themselves has to

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:10
do some creative things to not just say, I got my peeps and now

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:14
I'm good. No, it's like, I've got a starting point. But you

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:17
need to come hear this. You need to come hang with us. 20 of us

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:21
need to do that, so I don't just bring my one head of school and

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:24
that person feels like a fish out of water. Easier said than

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:27
done, but I think it just conceptually recognizes a

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:30
blending of these issues among multiple conditional groups. And

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:34
then I think the stature, the tech position, the CIO, the tech

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:37
director, goes much higher.

Hiram Cuevas 00:28:39
So Gabe, I imagine you're encountering schools all

Hiram Cuevas 00:28:42
over that continuum, oh yeah, yeah,

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:45
which is exciting and challenging, or just it

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:49
creates for like, a steady stream of work. And it's not

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:52
cookie cutter, because it's a function of the head, the board,

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:55
the school, the faculty, where that tech professional is the

Gabriel Lucas 00:28:59
success of the department. And there's a lot of things that I

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:02
think play into this. And look, I get the fact that schools

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:07
today, a lot of them are focused on survival, market, funding,

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:12
finance, like the dollars at stake are high, yes, yes and

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:16
yes. But a tech director, cio anything, even a systems manager

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:23
could just flip a switch, set a policy, if you will, and have a

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:28
tremendous impact on either user satisfaction or use your

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:34
frustration. And I don't mean open a firewall or doc, but

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:37
whatever it is right we can or can't install applications on

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:42
our computers, or what device is bought, or are we going to allow

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:46
this system or not? Or there's so many things. So this role is

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:51
so important, and yes, there is a tremendous continuum, but the

Gabriel Lucas 00:29:56
tech professional has so much influence. On the success of a

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:01
school they set an established culture. They can essentially

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:05
move that continuum with almost like a push of a button, or

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:10
we're going to buy this, or we're not going to, or we're

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:12
going to allow that, or not. That's a lot of power, and I

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:16
hope that they are using that ability influence to explain to

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:21
their peers how important technology is, but then we have

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:24
to get those people to recognize these decisions are not just

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:28
meant to be made by one person. And it's that intermingling that

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:32
I think will help move a school forward, but also help the

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:36
technology professional advance their either career goals or the

Gabriel Lucas 00:30:41
stature of their position.

Christina Lewellen 00:30:43
So looking back at the data, Gabe, we've

Christina Lewellen 00:30:45
had several years where we saw pretty significant increases in

Christina Lewellen 00:30:49
salary. So from 2019 to 2024 as long as we've been creating this

Christina Lewellen 00:30:54
report, the overall increase has been more than 15% Wow. But this

Christina Lewellen 00:31:00
year we leveled off. This year we saw a slight decrease. I

Christina Lewellen 00:31:05
mean, I don't want to call it a trend. One year is not a trend,

Christina Lewellen 00:31:07
right? But we saw a less than 1% decrease in average salary from

Christina Lewellen 00:31:12
around $108,000 a year to $107,000 a year. And again, over

Christina Lewellen 00:31:18
the last several years, it's been going up pretty

Christina Lewellen 00:31:20
significantly, but it's something maybe worth watching.

Christina Lewellen 00:31:23
I'm hopeful that maybe some of that is reflective of more

Christina Lewellen 00:31:26
individuals using this kind of data. Do some of the candidates

Christina Lewellen 00:31:29
and some of the schools actually know about the compensation

Christina Lewellen 00:31:33
report, and do they also leverage this data ahead of you

Christina Lewellen 00:31:36
bringing it to the table? Well,

Gabriel Lucas 00:31:38
they do. We're working with schools when

Gabriel Lucas 00:31:41
they're hiring. We're focused on the hiring moment when it's time

Gabriel Lucas 00:31:44
to set a salary for essentially, a transition. We don't do a lot

Gabriel Lucas 00:31:49
of work with schools on, like, resetting internal salaries

Gabriel Lucas 00:31:53
based on who's there. We help do some like, analysis of

Gabriel Lucas 00:31:57
positions, but we usually don't get into like, is this person

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:00
overpaid? Underpaid or not. Usually they're on your page.

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:02
Quite frankly, I'm going to again give you that statement I

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:05
made about 15 minutes ago, which you may not want to hear, but I

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:08
definitely see it across the board, which is, I mean, I can

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:13
think of literal carbon copy searches, and we don't carbon

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:17
copy a position statement. But like today's 2025, search with

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:21
client X. It's a mirror image of a search we ran three, four

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:26
years ago, and I used the four year ago search as an example to

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:29
the client to go, this is your search? And they're like, yeah,

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:32
that totally is. And then it's shocking, like, I don't think

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:35
they're literally copying that salary that was posted, but it's

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:40
amazing that the salaries have not increased in the market

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:44
search world that we used to see. I mean, I was seeing jumps

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:49
678, years ago, which were great. Now there's sort of a

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:53
leveling off, and we're also seeing that with division head

Gabriel Lucas 00:32:58
searches. Those are really tough. I'll tell you right now,

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:02
they're not going up at the level that I think they should

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:04
be. So I wish I had greater analysis, but I'm just not

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:08
seeing the salary increases across the board. But with the

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:12
technology position, it's tougher also, because, yeah, it

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:16
may be a carbon copy, but the points we discussed earlier, the

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:20
level of risk that this person is managing is way higher, and,

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:25
quite frankly, the ready to pounce is really higher the

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:29
moment like something goes wrong. So that's a problem.

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:33
We're seeing that here's what we do. We also push our clients to

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:37
look at public salary postings in industry or other nonprofits,

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:42
just to see, like, Okay, you're about to enter the public

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:45
market. How are others posting this position? You cannot just

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:50
do what you did three or four years ago, or what your peers

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:53
will do three or four years ago, like, use the salary analysis

Gabriel Lucas 00:33:56
that we're doing with Atlas. Use external just analysis in

Gabriel Lucas 00:34:00
general, look at your internal salaries and then realize that

Gabriel Lucas 00:34:04
this role has changed dramatically. Unfortunately, I'm

Gabriel Lucas 00:34:07
often that don't shoot the messenger when I'm talking to a

Gabriel Lucas 00:34:10
candidate that's like, Well, yeah, it is what it is, but I

Gabriel Lucas 00:34:13
totally get it.

Christina Lewellen 00:34:14
You know, the one thing that is holding

Christina Lewellen 00:34:15
true year after year with this data is that the biggest impact

Christina Lewellen 00:34:20
you can have to drive your average salary up is to be on

Christina Lewellen 00:34:26
the senior leadership team. Yeah, of a school, that gap is

Christina Lewellen 00:34:30
massive. So if you serve on the senior leadership team at your

Christina Lewellen 00:34:34
school, so often, that means reporting to the head, but if

Christina Lewellen 00:34:37
you are considered a senior administrator, your average

Christina Lewellen 00:34:40
salary in 2024 was more than $126,000 and that's compared to,

Christina Lewellen 00:34:45
if you are not a senior administrator, the average

Christina Lewellen 00:34:48
salary is $96,000 annually. So I think that what's interesting to

Christina Lewellen 00:34:52
me, at least in year after year after year, there's all sorts of

Christina Lewellen 00:34:55
drivers, right? You can look at this data from what kind of

Christina Lewellen 00:34:58
school it is, how big it is. What the enrollment is, what the

Christina Lewellen 00:35:01
average tuition is, what kind of population you serve. There's

Christina Lewellen 00:35:04
tons of ways to slice the data, but the one that seems to be the

Christina Lewellen 00:35:07
most impactful to me is, do you report to the head IE, or do you

Christina Lewellen 00:35:11
serve on a senior leadership team at your school? If so,

Christina Lewellen 00:35:15
you're probably likely to make more money.

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:17
And look, there are two sides to that coin.

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:20
You're going to make more money and you're going to have more

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:22
responsibility. Again, we're neutral. Once again, we're

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:26
neutral here, because for some schools and candidates not

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:30
having the tech the on the seat Adam team is the right thing.

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:33
The school might say, Hey, that's not quite what we need

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:35
for whatever reason. But there are plenty of candidates who go,

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:38
I don't want to be exposed to all of this, I want somebody to

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:42
oversee, and that's great, but I think those that are seeking

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:47
growth and looking for that next level, I want to expand their

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:51
career, and possibly want to go into headship or other lanes of

Gabriel Lucas 00:35:56
oversight that you have to find ways to get on That senior admin

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:00
team, because that is a doorway to so much higher levels of

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:05
strategy, strategy planning being neutral. If the technology

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:09
person is not on the senior admin team, I will knock on the

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:12
door of a senior admin team to say, well, then who is highly

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:17
technology fluent? An idea is not just one person, but where

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:21
is that strategy coming from? And if you don't have anybody in

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:25
here who is really equipped to think about these issues, and

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:30
you've put this technology position kind of shoved into a

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:33
box, you're asking for a lot of trouble, or at least no that's a

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:36
different level of risk that you may not be aware of, but that

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:39
needs to be brought out front and center. The growth thing is

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:43
really important, and it's tough, because if you're not on

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:46
the senior admin team and your head is not really recognizing

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:50
this is an important either area or it's not their comfort zone,

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:55
you'll burn a lot of political capital while trying to make

Gabriel Lucas 00:36:58
that happen. And sometimes you just have to look elsewhere and

Gabriel Lucas 00:37:00
recognize that there's an opportunity down the street,

Gabriel Lucas 00:37:03
down the next state, you can switch from Eagles fan to Kansas

Gabriel Lucas 00:37:07
City Chiefs fan, and move to a city where there is going to be

Gabriel Lucas 00:37:10
recognition of your position. And there you go. If you're

Gabriel Lucas 00:37:13
willing to switch jerseys, sometimes that's what you got

Bill Stites 00:37:16
to do. Gabe, we're not switching jerseys. Okay? We

Bill Stites 00:37:18
just need to leave this one alone.

Gabriel Lucas 00:37:20
I know you're not gonna do that.

Bill Stites 00:37:23
So I do have a question for you, because you're

Bill Stites 00:37:25
touching on a lot of things in terms of where you need to sit

Bill Stites 00:37:28
on the senior leadership team, in terms of how that pulls out

Bill Stites 00:37:31
the value that we as technologists bring into the

Bill Stites 00:37:34
schools. And you know, I've been involved with Atlas for a while,

Bill Stites 00:37:37
to many different levels. You know, I participated early on in

Bill Stites 00:37:40
the E cat program, moving on to the ALI program, working on the

Bill Stites 00:37:44
T list program, really to develop those areas where we can

Bill Stites 00:37:49
help build skills and build fluency, build some recognition

Bill Stites 00:37:53
around the fact that, okay, this is what you're doing. So what

Bill Stites 00:37:56
I'm going to do is, I'm going to ask you to kind of put on the

Bill Stites 00:37:59
candidate hat for one piece of this and then put on the school

Bill Stites 00:38:04
hat on another one. In terms of, what would you say to the

Bill Stites 00:38:07
candidate? In terms of, what are the things that you need to

Bill Stites 00:38:10
focus on to elevate yourself to that level, like participate in

Bill Stites 00:38:15
AI, look at the T list, stuff do X or Y, things. You know, what

Bill Stites 00:38:19
are those things that you would say to the candidate? And then,

Bill Stites 00:38:21
what are the things that you're saying to the school that listen

Bill Stites 00:38:26
you're saying you want all these things. This is what you need to

Bill Stites 00:38:28
look for, or these are the questions that you need to be

Bill Stites 00:38:31
thinking about and asking of those candidates. So taking that

Bill Stites 00:38:34
from both those perspectives,

Gabriel Lucas 00:38:36
yeah, great question for candidates, having

Gabriel Lucas 00:38:38
supervisory experience is really important. And if not going to

Gabriel Lucas 00:38:43
some certification program that is going to teach you managerial

Gabriel Lucas 00:38:49
skills, one of the number one things is, can you manage? Can

Gabriel Lucas 00:38:53
you lead people? And I think the beauty of either an Ali or a T

Gabriel Lucas 00:38:57
list or any program is that it's going to hopefully develop

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:01
leadership management skills in this domain. And let's get

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:04
really specific. How would an ed tech person oversee an IT ops

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:09
manager or a network administrator? Because that

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:12
happens. Or how might a CIO who came up through the ranks of it

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:17
lead an ed tech unit? So that's a fluency that is just

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:22
essential, and especially true if you, let's say you're the CIO

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:26
and you never wait, taught in the classroom, but you need to

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:28
lead ed tech vision, or if you're the Ed Tech professional

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:32
who's never really been that hands on with it, but you need

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:36
to lead an IT unit, or some sort of it functional team. So that's

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:40
probably number one. Number two would be ability to lead change

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:45
management initiatives. Always tell the story, right? This one

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:48
guy in a search, you know, we asked him a question like, how

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:51
would you lead a phone system migration? And it sounded like

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:53
he was basically saying, I go down to Best Buy, buy a bunch of

Gabriel Lucas 00:39:57
units, and within 30 days, they'd all be installed. So. Oh,

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:00
my God, you don't even understand change management,

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:03
technology, downtime, Christmas break, testing, sandbox

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:08
environment, so just the lack of awareness of what it means to

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:12
manage technology change, and thus, on the positive side,

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:18
again, any certification program or learning experience, teaching

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:22
somebody the fundamentals about how to manage technology

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:26
transition, I think then there's probably three. Would be just

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:30
fluency beyond talking points, but a reasonable level of

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:35
understanding of across the board issues, whether it is

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:39
cyber security, data privacy, institutional research, and then

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:44
let's go on the ed side, just general practices on, like

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:47
instructional design, how to work with faculty. You know,

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:50
faculty can sniff out somebody who's going to come across as a

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:53
Genius Bar. Actually, that's like the number one metaphor, or

Gabriel Lucas 00:40:57
sort of descriptive, like, we don't want that genius bar

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:00
person. And they'll say, you know, with that hat or whatever,

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:03
like, We want somebody who can just, you know, how do they

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:05
talk? Teach it. And that, I think, is important. But then

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:10
take that to mean also, like, for the other side, how do you

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:12
talk administrator, like somebody who's able to talk to a

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:16
CFO or an admissions professional, and like not come

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:21
across as IT support plus. But how do you present yourself as a

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:26
true senior administrator? I always say like Your resume

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:30
should look like you have the job that you're trying to get,

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:33
not that you have. And when you're talking to senior

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:37
administrators, you should sound and look. This isn't like sort

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:40
of a visual, but like, you should present yourself and your

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:43
ideas and your framework in such a way that basically you are

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:47
talking as if you are the CIO, if that's trying to get from the

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:50
school side, schools, I think, need to really be willing to not

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:55
pitch and hold these positions into one lane or another, and be

Gabriel Lucas 00:41:59
much more open to a variety of experiences. And they're too

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:04
quick to say, well, they haven't taught high school or, you know,

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:07
they don't see a certification of, like, they don't know how to

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:09
use, you know, network equipment, like, there's too

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:12
many check boxes that they are looking for on resumes. And

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:16
we're trying to say there is so much more to this person's job

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:20
or role that you don't understand, and you need to be

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:23
much more open to, like, a variety of experiences and

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:27
backgrounds. We're getting there, but it's taking a long

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:30
time, and I think people are just looking for like, the

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:34
unicorn that doesn't exist. And we have to convince them like

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:38
you need to give people a chance to present themselves in their

Gabriel Lucas 00:42:42
full light and not just sort of go off of a resume.

Christina Lewellen 00:42:45
I love that. Yeah, we know a couple unicorns.

Christina Lewellen 00:42:48
I host the podcast with a couple of them. There you go. Gabe,

Christina Lewellen 00:42:53
this was so helpful. And I always love taking a moment to

Christina Lewellen 00:42:56
kind of talk through the annual compensation benchmark report

Christina Lewellen 00:42:58
findings with you. I appreciate your partnership on gathering

Christina Lewellen 00:43:02
that data, and I just feel like the nuggets that come out of it

Christina Lewellen 00:43:06
are so useful to our community. They help folks advocate for

Christina Lewellen 00:43:10
themselves, and certainly inform schools to approach some of

Christina Lewellen 00:43:14
these big picture questions with a lot more information. So I

Christina Lewellen 00:43:18
thank you for that, and I thank you for joining us. For those of

Christina Lewellen 00:43:21
you who are interested in getting your hands on the

Christina Lewellen 00:43:23
compensation benchmark report that's available in the show

Christina Lewellen 00:43:26
notes, and I hope that you use it at Atlas. We always love to

Christina Lewellen 00:43:29
hear about how you're using it. A lot of times at our

Christina Lewellen 00:43:32
conference, folks will come up to me or my team and say, you

Christina Lewellen 00:43:36
know, use the benchmark report and I got a raise, or I

Christina Lewellen 00:43:39
advocated for another staffer, and so those types of movements

Christina Lewellen 00:43:44
of the needle just really bring me a lot of satisfaction. I love

Christina Lewellen 00:43:47
hearing those stories, so continue to let us know how

Christina Lewellen 00:43:49
you're doing with that. But Gabe, thank you so much for

Christina Lewellen 00:43:52
being with us today. It's really useful

Gabriel Lucas 00:43:54
My pleasure. Thank you all very much. And go

Gabriel Lucas 00:43:57
birds chiefs or whoever you rooting for, and you

Bill Stites 00:44:01
could have stopped with the first one, Gabe, you

Bill Stites 00:44:03
were you were all good. I

Gabriel Lucas 00:44:04
know I had to cover all bases. I'm sorry.

Christina Lewellen 00:44:07
It's a good thing that he doesn't have

Christina Lewellen 00:44:09
editing rights to this podcast.

Gabriel Lucas 00:44:11
We represent nobody, so you know, that's

Gabriel Lucas 00:44:15
right.

Christina Lewellen 00:44:15
He's a neutral party. Thank you, Gabe.

Christina Lewellen 00:44:17
We will see you at the annual conference. See you that

Peter Frank 00:44:22
this has been talking technology with Atlas,

Peter Frank 00:44:25
produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in

Peter Frank 00:44:27
Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas and

Peter Frank 00:44:31
Atlas membership, please visit the atlas.org if you enjoyed

Peter Frank 00:44:35
this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and

Peter Frank 00:44:38
share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent

Peter Frank 00:44:41
school community. Thank you for listening. You.