April 24, 2026 • 45 mins
In episode 261 of K12 Tech Talk, the hosts are back from CoSN Chicago and revisit the P3 breach story that has been ongoing for the last few weeks. The latest reports show the stolen records have now been listed for sale, while the company has not issued a full public disclosure.
On the screen time front, the hosts review LAUSD’s draft approach that emphasizes guidelines over hard time caps, reductions in K–1 screen use, changes to device programs for grades 2–5, and limits on student-led YouTube use.
The episode closes with a deep dive into K-12 IT careers: why pay and titles vary widely, how to grow from help desk roles to director or CTO positions, and practical tips - gain hands-on experience, earn relevant certifications, build communication skills and networks, be patient, and be intentional about career moves.
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Disclaimer: The views and work done by Josh, Chris, and Mark are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions or positions of sponsors or any respective employers or organizations associated with the guys. K12 Tech Talk itself does not endorse or validate the ideas, views, or statements expressed by Josh, Chris, and Mark's individual views and opinions are not representative of K12 Tech Talk. Furthermore, any references or mention of products, services, organizations, or individuals on K12 Tech Talk should not be considered as endorsements related to any employer or organization associated with the guys.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
On this week's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast, we discuss yet another update to
(00:05):
the Navigate 360 breach, a proposed screen time policy in the nation's second largest
district, and we discuss what it takes to navigate the K-12 technology career ladder.
Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios, this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
This is episode 261.
(00:27):
My name is Josh.
I'm a tech director here in mid-Missouri, where the weather is finally nice and warm.
Down the road, or should I say country mile for me, is Chris, and it sounds like he's
standing in the middle of a field using a potato as a microphone, because he is.
Hello, Chris.
Hey, what's up?
(00:51):
And over on the East Coast, where they have everything nice and fancy, hello, Mark, you're
using a beautiful microphone and camera tonight.
Oh, thank you.
I didn't say you were beautiful.
I'll have you know, this headset was given to me by someone who couldn't afford headsets.
You found it on the side of the road, maybe?
(01:11):
I'll have you know, we use this for end-of-year testing.
They don't talk in end-of-year testing.
No, I'm just kidding.
Oh, speaking of end-of-year testing, we are in thick in the throes of it.
What was it?
Was it Monday or Tuesday it was down for the morning?
I think it was Tuesday.
(01:32):
And that was, from what I understand, I saw a number of people on the East Coast on LinkedIn
saying that they broke it early in the morning, and it was up and down, I think, most of the
morning on Tuesday.
Since then, we've had a few hiccups, but overall, pretty good.
Chris, how's yours going?
(01:53):
Yeah, I enjoy, I mean, the power of the internet.
It's on LinkedIn, but K12 SysAdmin, K12 TechPro, it's always great when our East Coast friends
report the issues first.
Yeah.
Like, oh, it's going to be a crappy day today.
Where's Pennsylvania complaining about what's going on?
Yeah, and it was Pennsylvania.
It was Pennsylvania.
(02:13):
Yes, it was.
It's funny.
We can blame Mark, although.
I had nothing to do with it.
What is your testing platform, by the way?
Well, yeah, true.
You were in Vegas, so DRC.
DRC.
Okay, we used a different one.
DRC, and then we had, what was it?
It was TestNav for EOCs until recently, and then DRC, I guess, got the contract for grade
(02:35):
level as well as EOCs the last couple years.
Yeah, our state, Missouri, we used to have two different ones, one for the elementary
and then one for high school.
High school was the greener grass.
It was the better testing platform, so of course, our state chose to move the whole
state over to the crappier solution.
Yeah.
Boy, it was, too.
(02:57):
TestNav just worked.
You didn't need a local caching server.
You just needed to push the app, and it worked.
Greener grass, but our state decided to go with the one that we all complained about.
You know what that is.
That's low bid wins, is what that is.
Low bid, low quality.
Speaking of low, well, maybe not, Chris, do you want to hit a sponsor before we get into
(03:20):
the meat?
Well, of course I do.
Powergistics, a proud sponsor of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast, and for this month, not
many days left.
If you get on K-12 Tech Pro, Hayden's Hot Deal, or a bunch of Powergistics items, they're
charging stations, and I'll put a link in the podcast description.
If you're trying to figure out what kind of power needs you have in your classroom, in
(03:41):
your hallways, in your libraries, you know, typically how many Chromebooks or devices
you have charging, they have a cool rubric that you can follow, and they can give you
feedback on what they would recommend to you.
So check out Powergistics, and you can order now and not pay until July to help out with
your budget as well.
Powergistics.
Something that popped into my head, I had to do some time on the road today, picked
(04:04):
up my parents from the airport.
I listened to one of Darknet Diaries' newer episodes, it's about the Superbox, and I found
out that Darknet and this podcast, us, share an advertiser.
You'll have to listen to figure out who it is.
That's exciting.
Yeah, I'm like, I know those people, like, you know, Elf on I Know Santa.
(04:27):
So yeah, Jack's been on here with us before.
So Mark, you have a few news items for us.
I do.
We've got some screen time stuff, we've got some cybersecurity stuff.
Let's start with a quick one.
Tomorrow, as of this recording tomorrow, April 24th, is supposed to be the federal government's
(04:47):
deadline for website accessibility.
This is for government entities with a population of over 50,000.
Their websites need to be accessible according to the government's, the federal government's
standards.
However, that deadline has been pushed back for a full calendar year.
So now it'll be April 27th, 2020, or April 26th, 2027 is the first deadline for that
(05:12):
one.
So we did want to make sure that we stress that this is not a pause on the work.
This is just to give people more time to get ready for it.
So they don't want to see anybody stop or pause any efforts to improve your website
accessibility, but you do have another full year.
Yeah, I think when that got announced, you could hear every tech director and communications
(05:34):
person across the country rejoice.
There were, I know that's been a hot topic in several of the discussion forums, Chris,
that you and I are in.
Yeah.
I mean, as far as districts abandoning web host providers and moving to web host providers
that have some of that built into it, and just pure panic from like communications people,
(06:01):
how am I going to wrangle my teachers and whoever else is creating these documents that
are publicly consumed from using sans-serif font instead of using an ADA compliant font?
So actually Missouri is getting ready to pass a law, I think it's made it out of both the
(06:23):
House and the Senate now, to limit ADA website lawsuits, more or less make them not feasible.
So it's going to be interesting to see how this tracks and ends up.
And that was for, yeah, that was for the bigger schools, right?
So smaller schools still have the other year after that, yeah?
Yeah, it's a difficult one because they specify a community of over 50,000.
(06:46):
They don't specify how that plays out for school districts.
So I would say that if your combined student-teacher population and parents are over 50,000, then
these guidelines would apply for you.
But it's, you know, again, they're not specifying the student number in your district, they're
just saying communities of over 50,000.
(07:06):
Well, and really definition of community, because like in our area where our district
is the town, is the town the community?
Because we have community support that comes to football games and like, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, you're shaking your head at me, Mark.
(07:29):
This is still one of those, I know for my district, it was kind of given to tech department
as if it's a tech department burden.
And there's many things on here that are not, like, it's not only going to be tech department
impacted.
And we were at an event where it was talked about and a lot of heads were scratching that
they hadn't even gotten the memo yet as a tech department, you know, this is, it does,
(07:52):
it is tech, but there's some other people that need to be in play with these conversations
on being in compliance with this.
But we got time.
Yep.
And don't, don't take my comment as minimizing ADA because I'm, I'm an advocate for people
with disabilities.
So don't, don't take that comment as that.
(08:15):
A story we've talked about a few times, the Navigate 360 or P3 breach.
This was a website that collects anonymous tips for school districts, as well as other
customers and other clients.
They are essentially a white listed or a white branded platform that can be used under a
bunch of different names.
They were breached a few weeks ago.
We only found out because the records were put online for researchers.
(08:40):
Although recently the attackers or the hacker had said, I actually am in need of some money.
And so they put it up for sale for $10,000.
So while we thought this breach was originally contained two weeks ago, we are now seeing
that the hacker has listed them for sale.
Josh, you saw an even more recent update this morning from, uh, data breaches.net stating
(09:03):
that they have taken the records offline, that they're no longer for sale or perceived
to be for sale.
The long story short of this whole thing is Navigate 360 or P3 has yet to publicly disclose
this breach.
Even though we have seen these records on line or on the dark web for sale, we're still
(09:25):
waiting for school districts and, and, and a lot of our listeners have even commented
that they're still waiting for notification on this one because they have used this platform
in the past.
This is a massive, massive breach of extremely sensitive information.
And so to see that the company, the parent company has yet to say a single word about
this online while the hacker is negotiating a price for the sale is extremely concerning.
(09:50):
You know, I have a theory, my theory that the reason why we haven't heard an official
statement from P3 on this or from the company on this is because Chris has not emailed them
asking them to come on the podcast.
On it.
Yep.
I mean, we have quite the track record.
(10:13):
So that's a very dangerous thing to say to Chris, by the way.
Oh, he's already doing it now.
Did we mention that when we talked about the whole Astronaut Outlook issue thing, and then
the next morning Chris was like, I emailed NASA and they replied.
I did.
You did.
So yeah, Chris will email anybody.
(10:34):
And NASA, they did reply and then they ghosted me.
Oh, they had some things going on with the mission.
Shout out, shout out, Cheryl at NASA.
She did acknowledge receipt and then she said she would circle back if she could support
us doing an interview with someone, anyone in the tech department at NASA.
(10:59):
I want an astronaut.
I want an astronaut.
And then I emailed her three more times.
Cheryl, Cheryl, the ball's on your court, Cheryl.
(11:19):
This I'll say, dear Cheryl, we mentioned you in particular on our latest episode.
Is this where we say, Houston, we have a problem?
I think we've officially knocked P3 Navigate 360 off of our list of potential guests, but
we'll see.
We'll see.
And probably NASA at this point.
(11:42):
Yeah.
Speaking of cyber attacks, Iranian hackers have breached something that I did not expect
to hear, a fax line for a county.
This was sent to us from Jeremy, actually.
A gandala hack has claimed two terabytes of county data.
I forgot where this.
(12:04):
So I have a really funny story.
Yesterday, my son comes home and says, guess what we just set up and got working at work?
And he works for a county IT consultant firm.
I just found out that analog phone lines are called plain old telephone service.
It's called POTS.
(12:24):
And I'm like, yeah, so they just got a POTS line up and running in their department yesterday.
It's still not secure, but bring it back.
Well, that was when I was working at the hospital.
Fax was the only secure method of communication from doctor's offices to hospitals and back
and forth.
Not anymore.
Well, St. Joseph County, Indiana has found out the hard way that fax lines are not immune.
(12:47):
Although it's very hard to tell in the details of the story, it sounds like this is a fax
service and not necessarily a fax line.
But the Iranian cybercrime group known as gandala hack has claimed to have breached
in and stolen troves of data from social security information to police cases to medical records.
(13:08):
So just be careful that the attackers are going after any and all types of online services,
including your fax lines.
Chris, do you still have POTS lines?
Yes.
Well, they're all converted, AT&T, so they're converted to the not POTS lines anymore.
(13:30):
Oh, that's right.
You're using that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Whatever that technology is called.
Well, AT&T, we still have a handful and AT&T is getting ready to bump us up to like six
hundred dollars a month per POTS line.
All right, Mark.
What else?
All right.
All right.
The last story comes from L.A.
USD.
L.A.
(13:50):
USD, the second largest school district in the country, has just announced that they
are going to have a screen time policy.
This is not an official policy yet is essentially a statement to establish a screen time policy
in the next couple of months.
There are a lot of headlines around this one, but when you actually look at what they are
trying to say or what they're trying to do, it's very similar to what schools are currently
(14:15):
doing in terms of practices.
So you're seeing a lot of the intent of L.A.
USD is to reduce the amount of screen time in grades K to one, move from one to one to
more cart based laptops for grades two to five.
Families will be able to opt into the take home program.
And there it was very interesting.
(14:36):
You can see the red lines, the changes in their document.
They went from no YouTube to students to no student led YouTube use, meaning I think they're
just trying to say teachers can still use YouTube even though they don't want students
to do it.
And then a few other things like getting rid of screens in recess, things like that.
Recess?
(14:56):
Well, you know, indoor recess, wanting to move away from that kind of thing.
So when you really look at these statements of value that they have said in here, there's
nothing explosive.
There's nothing crazy in here.
They're not stating around the hard limits of screen time.
They are saying that the district should set guidelines for screen time usage, but they're
(15:19):
not capping this.
So I would encourage you to look at this.
I actually think the values that they put in here are pretty good.
It's very reasonable and I think it's very much in line with what we all think should
be realistic guidelines for screen time.
And it's not overly heavy handed like we've seen from some other places.
So LAUSD, we'll put the link to their document in the chat.
(15:44):
We'll be watching them very closely in the next few weeks to see what the actual policy
looks like.
Shout out to LAUSD for having a policy to have a policy.
I dig that.
Two things, one, check out Lightspeed, lightspeedsystems.com and they do more than a content filter.
They actually have a screen time audit as well.
(16:05):
And it's freaking awesome.
So if you're wanting to do that, you can do a 14 day audit at no cost.
And Josh, you're speaking highly of that.
Yeah, we used to have it before Lightspeed bought it.
It was named a different product and then Lightspeed assumed them.
It is a fantastic product.
(16:27):
And not to bash Clever, but night and day difference compared to Clever's reporting
that they have on student use, which is fine.
This Lightspeed tool is amazing.
And then second, I have submitted to Navigate360.
(16:48):
So I did the thing.
So it says, thank you for your interest.
They should be reaching out to me shortly.
Nice.
You got a reply already?
Well, an automated reply.
Oh, did you say you were media or?
Yeah, I'm very transparent.
Okay.
I'm excited.
All right.
All right.
(17:08):
That's it for the news.
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You want another one?
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(17:29):
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They can help you with all of that and help you with strategy with that.
So check out Incident IQ at IncidentIQ.com.
They're a service management platform built for schools, built for K-12.
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All right.
(17:50):
So I guess we can say this listener's name, right?
He didn't say anything about not saying his name.
So we had listener Ryan email a couple days ago and asking about just kind of our perception
or how we view IT and K-12 and some of his, I guess, frustrations with looking for a job
(18:14):
or trying to figure out how that progression from help desk guy to CTO, what that looks
like, the wide varying array of pay scales in K-12 IT.
So do you guys have any other intro for that?
Yeah.
I mean, he's trying to navigate the career ladder and just asked our opinions on what
(18:39):
does he need to know, what does he need to prepare for, and what advice do we have for
people who are trying to climb the K-12 technology career ladder.
So his first point or question is what causes the K-12 tech job market to be so inconsistent?
So he's noticed job postings range anywhere from $11 an hour for your entry level help
(19:03):
desk role to a six-figure director level position.
What's the deal with that K-12 market?
I think personally, the way I see this, and Chris, you and I have, well, all three of
us have discussions with districts that vary in size wildly, like super small districts,
(19:28):
800 students to one of the people I talk to on a regular basis, I think is 18,000 students.
I think that can be a big driver of that and with that larger student base population comes
a larger tax base.
Those larger student base populations are typically in more developed, they have more
(19:49):
assets that are taxed local dollar wise, and they can afford to pay their IT people considerably
more than some of the rural districts.
Yeah, I think the first lesson is that salaries are typically related to other position salaries
in the district.
So a district with higher teacher salaries, you're probably going to see a lot of other
(20:10):
support positions with higher salaries.
The other thing I've noticed is states are very different, one state to the other.
I know in my state, they are very autonomous, school districts are very autonomous with
salaries, whereas in some of the other states, North Carolina, South Carolina, I believe,
there are state-influenced salary scales.
(20:30):
So you have either ceilings or floors where a salary is going to start or end.
So it really all depends on where you are, it depends on the income level, the average
income level of the town, the property values, the state that you're in.
I don't think there's really any sort of consistency that you can calculate, though, unfortunately.
(20:51):
You're going to have two towns that are next door to each other with wildly different salaries.
Yeah, I've experienced, and again, this is Missouri vibes the whole way through, but
when I worked two school districts ago near a larger city, there was a lot more competition
(21:12):
amongst school districts to get quality candidates to leave from one school district to another.
Where I'm at today, we're a rural area, the superintendents compare notes, and all the
positions are pretty similar in pay, and that competition doesn't hit, they're just the
same.
A rural area is more content with getting someone that already lives local that wants
(21:37):
to stay local, so they're not looking to get a higher quality candidate from miles away
to come into the gig, because they can be very content with just someone that's going
to be loyal to the area.
And again, it's that same thing like Josh touched on, you might have, the job is called
technician, but technician for one school and the devices that they're over is way different
(21:59):
than technician at another school, that's how these things get so out of whack.
And a lot of it is based upon history and precedent, whether that's right or wrong,
it's what the school district has always kind of hired at that rate, and they're not looking
to change because they haven't had to change.
You know, there is a similar discussion along teacher salaries, like right now is negotiation
(22:22):
time in my district, and never fails, we're near a major metropolitan area, well within
driving distance, like I can be in that area for a really nice dinner in 20 minutes.
So we have to compete with all those districts between here and there.
Granted, they are larger districts, they have a larger tax base, so their revenue stream
(22:43):
is greater, but that doesn't mean the teachers that teach in my district aren't looking at
those districts that are less than 20 minutes away, 30 minutes away, to get a 15, $20,000
pay increase by moving.
And that translates to the tech department too.
You'd be foolish not to assume that your tech people, I lost a great technician a year and
(23:09):
a half ago for a $20,000 raise and a little bit of a promotion, but he's driving 45 minutes
now, one way.
So you'd be foolish in my area not to expect that type of movement.
And okay, transparency's sake too, none of this would be a discussion if we all didn't
(23:32):
know what we all make.
You know what, like public ed, those dollars, those salaries are public information.
I'll never forget, I wasn't on the job a month, and I had my first paper interview with a
local paper, and the last question the reporter asked me was, and what's your salary?
Caught me off guard because I had never been in a public entity as an employee before,
(23:56):
and my salary is public information.
If I didn't give it to him, he would have just called central office and gotten my salary
information from them.
So we all kind of know what each other makes.
So that's what also makes this a weird situation.
Our local newspaper would just publish everybody's salaries every year, and that was just the
(24:18):
worst time of the year.
They do that too.
They do that too.
My wife's district, they just published, they have a ton of it, it's a big, big district.
They just published all their administrators' pay raises.
So they listed each person.
The other thing that Ryan reached out about was just around job titles, and that's the
other frustrating part is that job titles are very inconsistent.
(24:41):
A department head, meaning the person who oversees the department of technology, can
be a director, an executive director, a CTO, a CIO.
There's really no rhyme or reason in terms of the size of the district or the job responsibilities.
All four of those titles are pretty much used interchangeably from director to CTO.
So I would just kind of categorize it as the department head rather than saying that there's
(25:06):
a very big difference between job responsibilities for those roles.
Wouldn't you agree that you really see the CTO, CIO type titles in larger districts?
Like Chris, around here, we don't see that in our area.
You have to get into St. Louis or Kansas City to really start, or Columbia, Springfield,
(25:29):
to start seeing those.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
The organizations that are going to have a larger layer of admin, you might see more
chief level type positions.
Well, his next question really is, so where do I go from here?
How do I progress on the career ladder?
What kind of advice do you have?
His ultimate goal is to get to the CTO, CIO level.
(25:52):
And as somebody who's kind of newer to the field, what's the best path forward?
So I think all three of us came from different angles.
So it might be helpful to kind of, I don't know, maybe outline where you came from in
order to get to your role, Josh.
Yeah.
So I went to college, completed a bachelor's degree.
(26:12):
Thankfully, I had the opportunity during college to work part-time at the local hospital in
the IT department.
So I was graduating with a bachelor's degree as well as having, I forget now, four years
of experience, hands-on IT experience.
So I was able to walk into a job at a major rental car company and be a huge part of their
(26:32):
help desk.
I think that career ladder, if you can get your foot in the door before you have a degree
or a cert, that's awesome.
I just, I don't see that happening a lot.
You have to really shine in one way or another to make that door open.
(26:54):
I've hired a couple of guys without degrees and where they shined were their customer
service skills, like absolutely outstanding, able to have a conversation and explain things.
I think degrees and certs are very important, but they need to be applicable to K-12.
Coming in with a CISM cert for an entry-level help desk isn't going to mean anything.
(27:21):
Security plus, network plus, okay, I know you know general ideas of networking and basic
security.
Yeah, I think they all are important.
It just, you got to get that foot in the door somehow.
Chris, how did you come to your position?
I always feel like, I've had high school students ask for advice where they do job
(27:48):
shadowing things.
I am in my 40s, and I feel like, I know, I'm getting, the voice in my head is still the
same.
I feel like my journey looks a lot different for, if you're an up-and-coming, just the
landscape of K-12 tech and how to become a tech director or a CIO looks a lot different.
I had my first tech job while I was still in college, so similar to what Josh said.
(28:14):
I was just wanting to get plugged in, so I'm going to go to college and I'm going to just
try to get actual field experience and figure out what I'm good at, what I'm not good at
kind of thing.
And then I took a tech job just as quick as I could as the full-time gig.
I did the approach of, I jumped into a tech director spot, but I was tech director, but
(28:35):
I was the only tech.
So I took on a small school district, and I got to do all the roles that, down the road,
I'll end up getting to be a part of a team that does that.
So I got to do the network stuff.
I got to do the sysadmin stuff.
I got to be the director that did E-rate, that did budget.
(28:55):
I got to have those conversations that take place with the leadership side, but I was
still the kid that was fixing the smart board and fixing the printer.
I think that made me well-rounded, so that when an opportunity came that I could move
on to something else, I could jump for it and show that I could lead all those positions.
I could have pride that I've run cabling, I've wired a computer lab myself, that kind
(29:20):
of thing.
I think it's different for a lot of techs today.
There's not a whole lot of movement all the time in K-12 tech positions and climbing to
the top, so you have to want it, and you have to look for those opportunities, and it may
be that you have to do some literal travel.
(29:41):
You might not just stay in your hometown or the city that you love to be around.
You might have to do some looking.
It might make sense to move away for a while to a small school or a medium school, put
in the time, energy, effort, and then get to come back home eventually, kind of thing,
but to be willing to do that, to get to that leader.
There is a difference between a technician and a tech director as far as communication
(30:07):
skills and that leadership.
Absolutely.
I think it's literally that spot, so if you're wanting to be CTO, make the moves in your
life and be intentional about, this is going to help me get to that spot someday.
There are differences between director, CTO at our size districts, Chris, and 10,000 student
(30:29):
plus districts.
We've got a friend that moved from a relatively small district to an 18,000 student district,
and that shift of you're in meetings all day, that your job is to be the departmental face
and be in meetings all day.
You're not in CLI in a switch.
You're not managing a server.
(30:50):
You're the department.
You're the face of the department.
That is also a huge difference when you're looking at sizes.
Mark, what say you?
I came the instructional route.
I was a classroom teacher for a while and moved into IT.
I didn't necessarily think that I was going to be a CTO, and I had no intentions of being
(31:10):
the CTO.
But I think for me, it was around work ethic and communication skills that really helped
me to explore different parts of the department.
And then when a position opened up, I didn't think I was qualified, but I went for it and
slowly climbed into roles that gave me more responsibility.
(31:32):
You're not going to go from tier one technician to CTO.
You need to get experience overseeing and supervising people.
You need to have experience going through emergencies, and people need to see how you
handle yourself through those emergencies and how you communicate over time.
So it takes time.
I don't know of anybody who goes from zero to 60 overnight.
(31:54):
This takes years, and it takes three or four positions at the very least of different types
of experience in order to find yourself in a director role.
So I do think patience is the most important thing in keeping in mind.
But then after that, really, it's just around getting yourself as much experience and practice
(32:15):
and building your reputation most of all.
And if you can get a...
Sorry.
No, go ahead.
I was just going to say, and if you can get a cert along the way, do it.
Yeah.
Well, and that's just it, right?
You come from different perspectives.
I didn't have the technical background that you guys did.
And so I had to get certifications in that area to prove my technical knowledge.
(32:38):
You guys, the opposite, you have to prove your instructional knowledge.
You have to prove that you can understand that world, because that's what's most appealing
to a superintendent or a COO is somebody who can bend both worlds, both the instructional
and the technical worlds.
And so whichever world you are missing, whichever side of the coin that you're missing, that's
(33:00):
where you should look for some certifications and some experience.
It doesn't need to be go back and teach.
You could go for the Google and the Microsoft instructional technology certifications.
You can go for some entry-level IT position certifications.
So there's opportunities.
I think having experience, certifications, and communication is just such an important
(33:23):
trio to have together.
And then after that, it's, like I said, patience in allowing a position to be open and going
for it.
Just do it, man.
If you want it, go get it.
Ryan, if you want it, go get it, Ryan.
I didn't realize you had-
Quit asking us questions, Ryan.
Get up.
Go get it.
(33:45):
Chris is now offering a motivational service as well.
I'll do weekly five-minute phone calls.
Here's a question for you.
Switching districts.
You've talked about moving to another district that has opportunities.
What do you think is a reasonable amount of time to stay in a role before you begin
to look for a different position?
(34:07):
To be clear, Mark, we're not saying any of us have looked at other jobs.
In the last week.
I say three years.
Yeah.
My gut philosophy, I've always wanted to stay in a place for two years.
I had one instance where an opportunity happened.
(34:28):
I was only at that district for a year, and I didn't like that I was making the move having
just been there for a year.
I didn't like what I was doing.
It made total sense for every other part of it, but that was breaking one of my gut philosophy
rules, whatever.
I would say for sure put in two years.
You shouldn't take a job if you don't think you're going to be there for two years.
(34:52):
But if you look at the job market and job trends now, you're lucky.
If you look at the average lifespan of an employee now, they hop jobs every Tuesday.
But that's not what employers want.
Employers don't want that.
I agree, but we're also talking all three of us are in our 40s.
(35:15):
We are a different generation than what would be coming up and taking these help desk roles.
A great example of that is that technician I lost.
I had him, I think it was just under a year or just over a year, and again, I'm a guy,
my shortest stint at a job was two years.
(35:36):
Other than that, I've had three jobs in my professional career.
I was at one-
You got fired that off?
Yeah.
Wow.
It only took him two years to figure it out.
That's a long time for you, but congrats.
I was at a place for 10 years, and I've been at my current district for 12 years, so I'm
probably not a good judge of that.
Well, I think you raise a good point, though.
(35:58):
There's a difference between moving positions every couple of years, but staying within
the same organization, versus moving to different positions in different organizations every
couple of years.
For sure.
For sure.
Yes.
If I look at a resume and I see that somebody's been in the same district or the same place
for five, 10 years, but they've had four or five roles, that tells me something good.
(36:21):
It tells me that they've moved, that their workplace has seen them as a valuable resource.
Let's move them up in the organization.
If you're moving from district to district every less than a year, that's a very, very
big red flag for a lot of employers, so you just need to be careful about that.
That's not what a superintendent wants to see in a director level position.
They want to hire somebody who's going to be there.
(36:44):
We all know those superintendents talk.
They all know each other.
They all have each other's cell phones.
There will be a text made if they look at a resume and say, you've been at three of
the eight districts in the county.
Yeah, I'm going to send a text message.
We're going to see what really is going on here.
(37:05):
That's great advice, too, to someone that wants to end up being CTO.
Get to know all the CTOs and build a relationship.
Let them know that you have plans to eventually be in that position.
One of the jobs I got was way early on.
(37:25):
I had blasted my resume all over the place.
There was a superintendent at a school I had never worked at, but he knew me.
Then he liked my resume, so he sent it to another superintendent that he heard was going
to be hiring a technician spot.
I got an interview because of that.
Again, my networking with this guy and his networking with that guy is what ended up
(37:51):
landing me an interview.
That's because, again, there was communication taking place there.
Build relationships up.
I think let people know what your intentions are.
Let people know that there are people, and it's a beautiful thing when you are content
with being a network administrator or content with being a system administrator or a technician,
(38:12):
that that is who you are, that is what you are built for, and that is a great life and
career that you are having.
You may be in a spot where you yearn, your body twitches, that you want to be a tech
director, that you want to be a CTO.
I think make your intentions known amongst those that you work with, amongst those that
you network with.
Yeah.
(38:32):
I mean, you've all raised good points about building your network.
I think that's such an important thing to understand is that you're going to get your
next job because of somebody that you know.
They're going to open the door, they're going to make a recommendation for you, but the
opposite is also true, that you just want to be sure that you're not burning any bridges.
Putting your name out there, I think it's a really good point, Chris, to put your name
(38:53):
out there as looking for a position.
I would also caution you against applying for every single job under the sun because
that also, that word gets around.
As you mentioned, Josh, they pick up super intense, pick up the phone, they talk to each
other, and when it sounds like somebody's shopping around and looking for a place to
go and looking to hop, that gives somebody a little bit of pause or concern.
So be very, when you get to that director level position, you want to be very, very
(39:15):
deliberate about where you want to go and why you want to go there and build your network
of positive recommendations and avoid the negative ones.
What do you think?
You going to hire Ryan?
I mean, it's all on how you sell yourself, right?
He's not.
Ryan, send us your resume.
Yeah, we're really sorry about that, Ryan, but we'll hire you.
(39:37):
Just keep dreaming, Ryan.
Hey, what do you say to someone that keeps applying but they don't get the gig?
What are you doing wrong?
Oof.
I mean, is that it?
You just say you're messed up?
You would have to assume they don't interview well, and that would be my first assumption.
(39:58):
If I didn't know them, if I didn't have a relationship with them to kind of be able
to see those idiosyncrasies or those weak spots, you would have ... My first inclination
is it wasn't a good interview.
Or sometimes, a lot of times, in K-12, the position is already filled before it's gone
out for posting.
(40:19):
Sometimes a position has to be posted and the district knows who they're going to hire.
If you get a rejection in an interview, don't take it personally.
Sometimes unfortunately, it's just the nature of the beast.
I don't think I've ever told this story.
When they posted the job that I have now, I called the central office and spoke with
(40:41):
the CFO, whoever was in charge of hiring at the time.
I flat out asked.
I said, is this position really open or do you guys have someone already marked for this
job and you just have to open it to open it?
You would say that.
You would ask that question.
Yeah.
I mean ... And you got it, too?
Yeah.
Wow.
(41:03):
Did you say ... Did you use a different name?
No.
No.
No.
No.
I was also, after I interviewed, I found a number of things ...
You were like, hey, this is Chris.
Is that why I didn't get that job?
Yeah.
I found a few things wrong during my interview, like very concerning things.
(41:26):
I called the CFO back.
I'm like, hey, whoever you hire is your thing, but you need to make a list.
These things need to be fixed right away.
Only you would criticize your own district before you're even hired for your own district.
I love that.
But they didn't have a director before.
They didn't have anyone.
I would never do that, but I love that you did that.
(41:49):
Really?
Wow.
Yeah, really.
I would never do that.
I mean, that's ... Okay.
I don't know.
That's not out of scope for me, I guess.
You guess.
I know.
That's not out of scope for you.
I'm not afraid to have difficult conversations, I guess.
Hey, I've got some breaking news here.
(42:11):
Missouri, the New Madrid Fault Line, Mark, you will enjoy this because I feel like you
enjoy rural Missouri stories.
I do.
I do, more than anything in life.
The New Madrid Fault, which is the fault line that had the big 1812 earthquake or whatever,
it just registered its largest earthquake of the year just this afternoon in Cooter,
(42:37):
Missouri, is the name of the town.
It shook Cooter.
Well, you should really cut to an ad or a sponsor or something.
We gots to go.
We gots to go.
Yeah.
This is going to be the wrap it up symbol.
It's all true.
It's all true.
Speaking of gots to go, we've got a couple of conferences coming up that we're going
(42:58):
to be going to.
I'll get us out of this.
Let's see.
We have, we just did COSEN.
COSEN was a great time.
Listen to that episode.
April 30th through May 1st, Hayden with K-12 Tech Pro will be at the Nebraska Conference
NETA.
The next week after that-ish, May 11th, is Actum, up your way, Mark, in Maine.
(43:23):
And then fast forward a little bit, we're going to be at the Gamus Conference July 6th
through the 10th in Georgia.
We'll all be three together hanging out in beautiful Savannah, Georgia.
And that's thanks to listeners and thanks to our sponsors, NTP.
You can email David Wren at dwren at ntp-inc.com.
Fortinet, get your Fortinet products from Fortinet Podcast at fortinet.com.
(43:48):
And then if you need some SSO, MFA, analytics, identity and access management, you can get
that from Classlink at classlink.com.
All right.
Anything else, boys?
No earthquake updates.
All right.
Well, if you have any questions for us, like Ryan did, shoot us an email.
If you want motivational phone calls, let us know, Chris will call you.
(44:14):
And then if you want to be talked off the ledge, Mark will call you.
Shoot us an email, k12techtalk at gmail.com.
Share us with your friends.
And we will see you next week.
(44:36):
The views and opinions expressed on the K-12 Tech Talk podcast are the personal opinions
of Josh, Chris and Mark and do not represent the views or opinions of our sponsors or other
organizations that we're affiliated with.
The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment
purposes only.
Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
On this week's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast, we discuss yet another update to
(00:05):
the Navigate 360 breach, a proposed screen time policy in the nation's second largest
district, and we discuss what it takes to navigate the K-12 technology career ladder.
Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios, this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
This is episode 261.
(00:27):
My name is Josh.
I'm a tech director here in mid-Missouri, where the weather is finally nice and warm.
Down the road, or should I say country mile for me, is Chris, and it sounds like he's
standing in the middle of a field using a potato as a microphone, because he is.
Hello, Chris.
Hey, what's up?
(00:51):
And over on the East Coast, where they have everything nice and fancy, hello, Mark, you're
using a beautiful microphone and camera tonight.
Oh, thank you.
I didn't say you were beautiful.
I'll have you know, this headset was given to me by someone who couldn't afford headsets.
You found it on the side of the road, maybe?
(01:11):
I'll have you know, we use this for end-of-year testing.
They don't talk in end-of-year testing.
No, I'm just kidding.
Oh, speaking of end-of-year testing, we are in thick in the throes of it.
What was it?
Was it Monday or Tuesday it was down for the morning?
I think it was Tuesday.
(01:32):
And that was, from what I understand, I saw a number of people on the East Coast on LinkedIn
saying that they broke it early in the morning, and it was up and down, I think, most of the
morning on Tuesday.
Since then, we've had a few hiccups, but overall, pretty good.
Chris, how's yours going?
(01:53):
Yeah, I enjoy, I mean, the power of the internet.
It's on LinkedIn, but K12 SysAdmin, K12 TechPro, it's always great when our East Coast friends
report the issues first.
Yeah.
Like, oh, it's going to be a crappy day today.
Where's Pennsylvania complaining about what's going on?
Yeah, and it was Pennsylvania.
It was Pennsylvania.
(02:13):
Yes, it was.
It's funny.
We can blame Mark, although.
I had nothing to do with it.
What is your testing platform, by the way?
Well, yeah, true.
You were in Vegas, so DRC.
DRC.
Okay, we used a different one.
DRC, and then we had, what was it?
It was TestNav for EOCs until recently, and then DRC, I guess, got the contract for grade
(02:35):
level as well as EOCs the last couple years.
Yeah, our state, Missouri, we used to have two different ones, one for the elementary
and then one for high school.
High school was the greener grass.
It was the better testing platform, so of course, our state chose to move the whole
state over to the crappier solution.
Yeah.
Boy, it was, too.
(02:57):
TestNav just worked.
You didn't need a local caching server.
You just needed to push the app, and it worked.
Greener grass, but our state decided to go with the one that we all complained about.
You know what that is.
That's low bid wins, is what that is.
Low bid, low quality.
Speaking of low, well, maybe not, Chris, do you want to hit a sponsor before we get into
(03:20):
the meat?
Well, of course I do.
Powergistics, a proud sponsor of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast, and for this month, not
many days left.
If you get on K-12 Tech Pro, Hayden's Hot Deal, or a bunch of Powergistics items, they're
charging stations, and I'll put a link in the podcast description.
If you're trying to figure out what kind of power needs you have in your classroom, in
(03:41):
your hallways, in your libraries, you know, typically how many Chromebooks or devices
you have charging, they have a cool rubric that you can follow, and they can give you
feedback on what they would recommend to you.
So check out Powergistics, and you can order now and not pay until July to help out with
your budget as well.
Powergistics.
Something that popped into my head, I had to do some time on the road today, picked
(04:04):
up my parents from the airport.
I listened to one of Darknet Diaries' newer episodes, it's about the Superbox, and I found
out that Darknet and this podcast, us, share an advertiser.
You'll have to listen to figure out who it is.
That's exciting.
Yeah, I'm like, I know those people, like, you know, Elf on I Know Santa.
(04:27):
So yeah, Jack's been on here with us before.
So Mark, you have a few news items for us.
I do.
We've got some screen time stuff, we've got some cybersecurity stuff.
Let's start with a quick one.
Tomorrow, as of this recording tomorrow, April 24th, is supposed to be the federal government's
(04:47):
deadline for website accessibility.
This is for government entities with a population of over 50,000.
Their websites need to be accessible according to the government's, the federal government's
standards.
However, that deadline has been pushed back for a full calendar year.
So now it'll be April 27th, 2020, or April 26th, 2027 is the first deadline for that
(05:12):
one.
So we did want to make sure that we stress that this is not a pause on the work.
This is just to give people more time to get ready for it.
So they don't want to see anybody stop or pause any efforts to improve your website
accessibility, but you do have another full year.
Yeah, I think when that got announced, you could hear every tech director and communications
(05:34):
person across the country rejoice.
There were, I know that's been a hot topic in several of the discussion forums, Chris,
that you and I are in.
Yeah.
I mean, as far as districts abandoning web host providers and moving to web host providers
that have some of that built into it, and just pure panic from like communications people,
(06:01):
how am I going to wrangle my teachers and whoever else is creating these documents that
are publicly consumed from using sans-serif font instead of using an ADA compliant font?
So actually Missouri is getting ready to pass a law, I think it's made it out of both the
(06:23):
House and the Senate now, to limit ADA website lawsuits, more or less make them not feasible.
So it's going to be interesting to see how this tracks and ends up.
And that was for, yeah, that was for the bigger schools, right?
So smaller schools still have the other year after that, yeah?
Yeah, it's a difficult one because they specify a community of over 50,000.
(06:46):
They don't specify how that plays out for school districts.
So I would say that if your combined student-teacher population and parents are over 50,000, then
these guidelines would apply for you.
But it's, you know, again, they're not specifying the student number in your district, they're
just saying communities of over 50,000.
(07:06):
Well, and really definition of community, because like in our area where our district
is the town, is the town the community?
Because we have community support that comes to football games and like, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, you're shaking your head at me, Mark.
(07:29):
This is still one of those, I know for my district, it was kind of given to tech department
as if it's a tech department burden.
And there's many things on here that are not, like, it's not only going to be tech department
impacted.
And we were at an event where it was talked about and a lot of heads were scratching that
they hadn't even gotten the memo yet as a tech department, you know, this is, it does,
(07:52):
it is tech, but there's some other people that need to be in play with these conversations
on being in compliance with this.
But we got time.
Yep.
And don't, don't take my comment as minimizing ADA because I'm, I'm an advocate for people
with disabilities.
So don't, don't take that comment as that.
(08:15):
A story we've talked about a few times, the Navigate 360 or P3 breach.
This was a website that collects anonymous tips for school districts, as well as other
customers and other clients.
They are essentially a white listed or a white branded platform that can be used under a
bunch of different names.
They were breached a few weeks ago.
We only found out because the records were put online for researchers.
(08:40):
Although recently the attackers or the hacker had said, I actually am in need of some money.
And so they put it up for sale for $10,000.
So while we thought this breach was originally contained two weeks ago, we are now seeing
that the hacker has listed them for sale.
Josh, you saw an even more recent update this morning from, uh, data breaches.net stating
(09:03):
that they have taken the records offline, that they're no longer for sale or perceived
to be for sale.
The long story short of this whole thing is Navigate 360 or P3 has yet to publicly disclose
this breach.
Even though we have seen these records on line or on the dark web for sale, we're still
(09:25):
waiting for school districts and, and, and a lot of our listeners have even commented
that they're still waiting for notification on this one because they have used this platform
in the past.
This is a massive, massive breach of extremely sensitive information.
And so to see that the company, the parent company has yet to say a single word about
this online while the hacker is negotiating a price for the sale is extremely concerning.
(09:50):
You know, I have a theory, my theory that the reason why we haven't heard an official
statement from P3 on this or from the company on this is because Chris has not emailed them
asking them to come on the podcast.
On it.
Yep.
I mean, we have quite the track record.
(10:13):
So that's a very dangerous thing to say to Chris, by the way.
Oh, he's already doing it now.
Did we mention that when we talked about the whole Astronaut Outlook issue thing, and then
the next morning Chris was like, I emailed NASA and they replied.
I did.
You did.
So yeah, Chris will email anybody.
(10:34):
And NASA, they did reply and then they ghosted me.
Oh, they had some things going on with the mission.
Shout out, shout out, Cheryl at NASA.
She did acknowledge receipt and then she said she would circle back if she could support
us doing an interview with someone, anyone in the tech department at NASA.
(10:59):
I want an astronaut.
I want an astronaut.
And then I emailed her three more times.
Cheryl, Cheryl, the ball's on your court, Cheryl.
(11:19):
This I'll say, dear Cheryl, we mentioned you in particular on our latest episode.
Is this where we say, Houston, we have a problem?
I think we've officially knocked P3 Navigate 360 off of our list of potential guests, but
we'll see.
We'll see.
And probably NASA at this point.
(11:42):
Yeah.
Speaking of cyber attacks, Iranian hackers have breached something that I did not expect
to hear, a fax line for a county.
This was sent to us from Jeremy, actually.
A gandala hack has claimed two terabytes of county data.
I forgot where this.
(12:04):
So I have a really funny story.
Yesterday, my son comes home and says, guess what we just set up and got working at work?
And he works for a county IT consultant firm.
I just found out that analog phone lines are called plain old telephone service.
It's called POTS.
(12:24):
And I'm like, yeah, so they just got a POTS line up and running in their department yesterday.
It's still not secure, but bring it back.
Well, that was when I was working at the hospital.
Fax was the only secure method of communication from doctor's offices to hospitals and back
and forth.
Not anymore.
Well, St. Joseph County, Indiana has found out the hard way that fax lines are not immune.
(12:47):
Although it's very hard to tell in the details of the story, it sounds like this is a fax
service and not necessarily a fax line.
But the Iranian cybercrime group known as gandala hack has claimed to have breached
in and stolen troves of data from social security information to police cases to medical records.
(13:08):
So just be careful that the attackers are going after any and all types of online services,
including your fax lines.
Chris, do you still have POTS lines?
Yes.
Well, they're all converted, AT&T, so they're converted to the not POTS lines anymore.
(13:30):
Oh, that's right.
You're using that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Whatever that technology is called.
Well, AT&T, we still have a handful and AT&T is getting ready to bump us up to like six
hundred dollars a month per POTS line.
All right, Mark.
What else?
All right.
All right.
The last story comes from L.A.
USD.
L.A.
(13:50):
USD, the second largest school district in the country, has just announced that they
are going to have a screen time policy.
This is not an official policy yet is essentially a statement to establish a screen time policy
in the next couple of months.
There are a lot of headlines around this one, but when you actually look at what they are
trying to say or what they're trying to do, it's very similar to what schools are currently
(14:15):
doing in terms of practices.
So you're seeing a lot of the intent of L.A.
USD is to reduce the amount of screen time in grades K to one, move from one to one to
more cart based laptops for grades two to five.
Families will be able to opt into the take home program.
And there it was very interesting.
(14:36):
You can see the red lines, the changes in their document.
They went from no YouTube to students to no student led YouTube use, meaning I think they're
just trying to say teachers can still use YouTube even though they don't want students
to do it.
And then a few other things like getting rid of screens in recess, things like that.
Recess?
(14:56):
Well, you know, indoor recess, wanting to move away from that kind of thing.
So when you really look at these statements of value that they have said in here, there's
nothing explosive.
There's nothing crazy in here.
They're not stating around the hard limits of screen time.
They are saying that the district should set guidelines for screen time usage, but they're
(15:19):
not capping this.
So I would encourage you to look at this.
I actually think the values that they put in here are pretty good.
It's very reasonable and I think it's very much in line with what we all think should
be realistic guidelines for screen time.
And it's not overly heavy handed like we've seen from some other places.
So LAUSD, we'll put the link to their document in the chat.
(15:44):
We'll be watching them very closely in the next few weeks to see what the actual policy
looks like.
Shout out to LAUSD for having a policy to have a policy.
I dig that.
Two things, one, check out Lightspeed, lightspeedsystems.com and they do more than a content filter.
They actually have a screen time audit as well.
(16:05):
And it's freaking awesome.
So if you're wanting to do that, you can do a 14 day audit at no cost.
And Josh, you're speaking highly of that.
Yeah, we used to have it before Lightspeed bought it.
It was named a different product and then Lightspeed assumed them.
It is a fantastic product.
(16:27):
And not to bash Clever, but night and day difference compared to Clever's reporting
that they have on student use, which is fine.
This Lightspeed tool is amazing.
And then second, I have submitted to Navigate360.
(16:48):
So I did the thing.
So it says, thank you for your interest.
They should be reaching out to me shortly.
Nice.
You got a reply already?
Well, an automated reply.
Oh, did you say you were media or?
Yeah, I'm very transparent.
Okay.
I'm excited.
All right.
All right.
(17:08):
That's it for the news.
All right, Chris, was that your sponsor hit before we get into the?
You want another one?
I got one.
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(17:29):
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(17:50):
So I guess we can say this listener's name, right?
He didn't say anything about not saying his name.
So we had listener Ryan email a couple days ago and asking about just kind of our perception
or how we view IT and K-12 and some of his, I guess, frustrations with looking for a job
(18:14):
or trying to figure out how that progression from help desk guy to CTO, what that looks
like, the wide varying array of pay scales in K-12 IT.
So do you guys have any other intro for that?
Yeah.
I mean, he's trying to navigate the career ladder and just asked our opinions on what
(18:39):
does he need to know, what does he need to prepare for, and what advice do we have for
people who are trying to climb the K-12 technology career ladder.
So his first point or question is what causes the K-12 tech job market to be so inconsistent?
So he's noticed job postings range anywhere from $11 an hour for your entry level help
(19:03):
desk role to a six-figure director level position.
What's the deal with that K-12 market?
I think personally, the way I see this, and Chris, you and I have, well, all three of
us have discussions with districts that vary in size wildly, like super small districts,
(19:28):
800 students to one of the people I talk to on a regular basis, I think is 18,000 students.
I think that can be a big driver of that and with that larger student base population comes
a larger tax base.
Those larger student base populations are typically in more developed, they have more
(19:49):
assets that are taxed local dollar wise, and they can afford to pay their IT people considerably
more than some of the rural districts.
Yeah, I think the first lesson is that salaries are typically related to other position salaries
in the district.
So a district with higher teacher salaries, you're probably going to see a lot of other
(20:10):
support positions with higher salaries.
The other thing I've noticed is states are very different, one state to the other.
I know in my state, they are very autonomous, school districts are very autonomous with
salaries, whereas in some of the other states, North Carolina, South Carolina, I believe,
there are state-influenced salary scales.
(20:30):
So you have either ceilings or floors where a salary is going to start or end.
So it really all depends on where you are, it depends on the income level, the average
income level of the town, the property values, the state that you're in.
I don't think there's really any sort of consistency that you can calculate, though, unfortunately.
(20:51):
You're going to have two towns that are next door to each other with wildly different salaries.
Yeah, I've experienced, and again, this is Missouri vibes the whole way through, but
when I worked two school districts ago near a larger city, there was a lot more competition
(21:12):
amongst school districts to get quality candidates to leave from one school district to another.
Where I'm at today, we're a rural area, the superintendents compare notes, and all the
positions are pretty similar in pay, and that competition doesn't hit, they're just the
same.
A rural area is more content with getting someone that already lives local that wants
(21:37):
to stay local, so they're not looking to get a higher quality candidate from miles away
to come into the gig, because they can be very content with just someone that's going
to be loyal to the area.
And again, it's that same thing like Josh touched on, you might have, the job is called
technician, but technician for one school and the devices that they're over is way different
(21:59):
than technician at another school, that's how these things get so out of whack.
And a lot of it is based upon history and precedent, whether that's right or wrong,
it's what the school district has always kind of hired at that rate, and they're not looking
to change because they haven't had to change.
You know, there is a similar discussion along teacher salaries, like right now is negotiation
(22:22):
time in my district, and never fails, we're near a major metropolitan area, well within
driving distance, like I can be in that area for a really nice dinner in 20 minutes.
So we have to compete with all those districts between here and there.
Granted, they are larger districts, they have a larger tax base, so their revenue stream
(22:43):
is greater, but that doesn't mean the teachers that teach in my district aren't looking at
those districts that are less than 20 minutes away, 30 minutes away, to get a 15, $20,000
pay increase by moving.
And that translates to the tech department too.
You'd be foolish not to assume that your tech people, I lost a great technician a year and
(23:09):
a half ago for a $20,000 raise and a little bit of a promotion, but he's driving 45 minutes
now, one way.
So you'd be foolish in my area not to expect that type of movement.
And okay, transparency's sake too, none of this would be a discussion if we all didn't
(23:32):
know what we all make.
You know what, like public ed, those dollars, those salaries are public information.
I'll never forget, I wasn't on the job a month, and I had my first paper interview with a
local paper, and the last question the reporter asked me was, and what's your salary?
Caught me off guard because I had never been in a public entity as an employee before,
(23:56):
and my salary is public information.
If I didn't give it to him, he would have just called central office and gotten my salary
information from them.
So we all kind of know what each other makes.
So that's what also makes this a weird situation.
Our local newspaper would just publish everybody's salaries every year, and that was just the
(24:18):
worst time of the year.
They do that too.
They do that too.
My wife's district, they just published, they have a ton of it, it's a big, big district.
They just published all their administrators' pay raises.
So they listed each person.
The other thing that Ryan reached out about was just around job titles, and that's the
other frustrating part is that job titles are very inconsistent.
(24:41):
A department head, meaning the person who oversees the department of technology, can
be a director, an executive director, a CTO, a CIO.
There's really no rhyme or reason in terms of the size of the district or the job responsibilities.
All four of those titles are pretty much used interchangeably from director to CTO.
So I would just kind of categorize it as the department head rather than saying that there's
(25:06):
a very big difference between job responsibilities for those roles.
Wouldn't you agree that you really see the CTO, CIO type titles in larger districts?
Like Chris, around here, we don't see that in our area.
You have to get into St. Louis or Kansas City to really start, or Columbia, Springfield,
(25:29):
to start seeing those.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
The organizations that are going to have a larger layer of admin, you might see more
chief level type positions.
Well, his next question really is, so where do I go from here?
How do I progress on the career ladder?
What kind of advice do you have?
His ultimate goal is to get to the CTO, CIO level.
(25:52):
And as somebody who's kind of newer to the field, what's the best path forward?
So I think all three of us came from different angles.
So it might be helpful to kind of, I don't know, maybe outline where you came from in
order to get to your role, Josh.
Yeah.
So I went to college, completed a bachelor's degree.
(26:12):
Thankfully, I had the opportunity during college to work part-time at the local hospital in
the IT department.
So I was graduating with a bachelor's degree as well as having, I forget now, four years
of experience, hands-on IT experience.
So I was able to walk into a job at a major rental car company and be a huge part of their
(26:32):
help desk.
I think that career ladder, if you can get your foot in the door before you have a degree
or a cert, that's awesome.
I just, I don't see that happening a lot.
You have to really shine in one way or another to make that door open.
(26:54):
I've hired a couple of guys without degrees and where they shined were their customer
service skills, like absolutely outstanding, able to have a conversation and explain things.
I think degrees and certs are very important, but they need to be applicable to K-12.
Coming in with a CISM cert for an entry-level help desk isn't going to mean anything.
(27:21):
Security plus, network plus, okay, I know you know general ideas of networking and basic
security.
Yeah, I think they all are important.
It just, you got to get that foot in the door somehow.
Chris, how did you come to your position?
I always feel like, I've had high school students ask for advice where they do job
(27:48):
shadowing things.
I am in my 40s, and I feel like, I know, I'm getting, the voice in my head is still the
same.
I feel like my journey looks a lot different for, if you're an up-and-coming, just the
landscape of K-12 tech and how to become a tech director or a CIO looks a lot different.
I had my first tech job while I was still in college, so similar to what Josh said.
(28:14):
I was just wanting to get plugged in, so I'm going to go to college and I'm going to just
try to get actual field experience and figure out what I'm good at, what I'm not good at
kind of thing.
And then I took a tech job just as quick as I could as the full-time gig.
I did the approach of, I jumped into a tech director spot, but I was tech director, but
(28:35):
I was the only tech.
So I took on a small school district, and I got to do all the roles that, down the road,
I'll end up getting to be a part of a team that does that.
So I got to do the network stuff.
I got to do the sysadmin stuff.
I got to be the director that did E-rate, that did budget.
(28:55):
I got to have those conversations that take place with the leadership side, but I was
still the kid that was fixing the smart board and fixing the printer.
I think that made me well-rounded, so that when an opportunity came that I could move
on to something else, I could jump for it and show that I could lead all those positions.
I could have pride that I've run cabling, I've wired a computer lab myself, that kind
(29:20):
of thing.
I think it's different for a lot of techs today.
There's not a whole lot of movement all the time in K-12 tech positions and climbing to
the top, so you have to want it, and you have to look for those opportunities, and it may
be that you have to do some literal travel.
(29:41):
You might not just stay in your hometown or the city that you love to be around.
You might have to do some looking.
It might make sense to move away for a while to a small school or a medium school, put
in the time, energy, effort, and then get to come back home eventually, kind of thing,
but to be willing to do that, to get to that leader.
There is a difference between a technician and a tech director as far as communication
(30:07):
skills and that leadership.
Absolutely.
I think it's literally that spot, so if you're wanting to be CTO, make the moves in your
life and be intentional about, this is going to help me get to that spot someday.
There are differences between director, CTO at our size districts, Chris, and 10,000 student
(30:29):
plus districts.
We've got a friend that moved from a relatively small district to an 18,000 student district,
and that shift of you're in meetings all day, that your job is to be the departmental face
and be in meetings all day.
You're not in CLI in a switch.
You're not managing a server.
(30:50):
You're the department.
You're the face of the department.
That is also a huge difference when you're looking at sizes.
Mark, what say you?
I came the instructional route.
I was a classroom teacher for a while and moved into IT.
I didn't necessarily think that I was going to be a CTO, and I had no intentions of being
(31:10):
the CTO.
But I think for me, it was around work ethic and communication skills that really helped
me to explore different parts of the department.
And then when a position opened up, I didn't think I was qualified, but I went for it and
slowly climbed into roles that gave me more responsibility.
(31:32):
You're not going to go from tier one technician to CTO.
You need to get experience overseeing and supervising people.
You need to have experience going through emergencies, and people need to see how you
handle yourself through those emergencies and how you communicate over time.
So it takes time.
I don't know of anybody who goes from zero to 60 overnight.
(31:54):
This takes years, and it takes three or four positions at the very least of different types
of experience in order to find yourself in a director role.
So I do think patience is the most important thing in keeping in mind.
But then after that, really, it's just around getting yourself as much experience and practice
(32:15):
and building your reputation most of all.
And if you can get a...
Sorry.
No, go ahead.
I was just going to say, and if you can get a cert along the way, do it.
Yeah.
Well, and that's just it, right?
You come from different perspectives.
I didn't have the technical background that you guys did.
And so I had to get certifications in that area to prove my technical knowledge.
(32:38):
You guys, the opposite, you have to prove your instructional knowledge.
You have to prove that you can understand that world, because that's what's most appealing
to a superintendent or a COO is somebody who can bend both worlds, both the instructional
and the technical worlds.
And so whichever world you are missing, whichever side of the coin that you're missing, that's
(33:00):
where you should look for some certifications and some experience.
It doesn't need to be go back and teach.
You could go for the Google and the Microsoft instructional technology certifications.
You can go for some entry-level IT position certifications.
So there's opportunities.
I think having experience, certifications, and communication is just such an important
(33:23):
trio to have together.
And then after that, it's, like I said, patience in allowing a position to be open and going
for it.
Just do it, man.
If you want it, go get it.
Ryan, if you want it, go get it, Ryan.
I didn't realize you had-
Quit asking us questions, Ryan.
Get up.
Go get it.
(33:45):
Chris is now offering a motivational service as well.
I'll do weekly five-minute phone calls.
Here's a question for you.
Switching districts.
You've talked about moving to another district that has opportunities.
What do you think is a reasonable amount of time to stay in a role before you begin
to look for a different position?
(34:07):
To be clear, Mark, we're not saying any of us have looked at other jobs.
In the last week.
I say three years.
Yeah.
My gut philosophy, I've always wanted to stay in a place for two years.
I had one instance where an opportunity happened.
(34:28):
I was only at that district for a year, and I didn't like that I was making the move having
just been there for a year.
I didn't like what I was doing.
It made total sense for every other part of it, but that was breaking one of my gut philosophy
rules, whatever.
I would say for sure put in two years.
You shouldn't take a job if you don't think you're going to be there for two years.
(34:52):
But if you look at the job market and job trends now, you're lucky.
If you look at the average lifespan of an employee now, they hop jobs every Tuesday.
But that's not what employers want.
Employers don't want that.
I agree, but we're also talking all three of us are in our 40s.
(35:15):
We are a different generation than what would be coming up and taking these help desk roles.
A great example of that is that technician I lost.
I had him, I think it was just under a year or just over a year, and again, I'm a guy,
my shortest stint at a job was two years.
(35:36):
Other than that, I've had three jobs in my professional career.
I was at one-
You got fired that off?
Yeah.
Wow.
It only took him two years to figure it out.
That's a long time for you, but congrats.
I was at a place for 10 years, and I've been at my current district for 12 years, so I'm
probably not a good judge of that.
Well, I think you raise a good point, though.
(35:58):
There's a difference between moving positions every couple of years, but staying within
the same organization, versus moving to different positions in different organizations every
couple of years.
For sure.
For sure.
Yes.
If I look at a resume and I see that somebody's been in the same district or the same place
for five, 10 years, but they've had four or five roles, that tells me something good.
(36:21):
It tells me that they've moved, that their workplace has seen them as a valuable resource.
Let's move them up in the organization.
If you're moving from district to district every less than a year, that's a very, very
big red flag for a lot of employers, so you just need to be careful about that.
That's not what a superintendent wants to see in a director level position.
They want to hire somebody who's going to be there.
(36:44):
We all know those superintendents talk.
They all know each other.
They all have each other's cell phones.
There will be a text made if they look at a resume and say, you've been at three of
the eight districts in the county.
Yeah, I'm going to send a text message.
We're going to see what really is going on here.
(37:05):
That's great advice, too, to someone that wants to end up being CTO.
Get to know all the CTOs and build a relationship.
Let them know that you have plans to eventually be in that position.
One of the jobs I got was way early on.
(37:25):
I had blasted my resume all over the place.
There was a superintendent at a school I had never worked at, but he knew me.
Then he liked my resume, so he sent it to another superintendent that he heard was going
to be hiring a technician spot.
I got an interview because of that.
Again, my networking with this guy and his networking with that guy is what ended up
(37:51):
landing me an interview.
That's because, again, there was communication taking place there.
Build relationships up.
I think let people know what your intentions are.
Let people know that there are people, and it's a beautiful thing when you are content
with being a network administrator or content with being a system administrator or a technician,
(38:12):
that that is who you are, that is what you are built for, and that is a great life and
career that you are having.
You may be in a spot where you yearn, your body twitches, that you want to be a tech
director, that you want to be a CTO.
I think make your intentions known amongst those that you work with, amongst those that
you network with.
Yeah.
(38:32):
I mean, you've all raised good points about building your network.
I think that's such an important thing to understand is that you're going to get your
next job because of somebody that you know.
They're going to open the door, they're going to make a recommendation for you, but the
opposite is also true, that you just want to be sure that you're not burning any bridges.
Putting your name out there, I think it's a really good point, Chris, to put your name
(38:53):
out there as looking for a position.
I would also caution you against applying for every single job under the sun because
that also, that word gets around.
As you mentioned, Josh, they pick up super intense, pick up the phone, they talk to each
other, and when it sounds like somebody's shopping around and looking for a place to
go and looking to hop, that gives somebody a little bit of pause or concern.
So be very, when you get to that director level position, you want to be very, very
(39:15):
deliberate about where you want to go and why you want to go there and build your network
of positive recommendations and avoid the negative ones.
What do you think?
You going to hire Ryan?
I mean, it's all on how you sell yourself, right?
He's not.
Ryan, send us your resume.
Yeah, we're really sorry about that, Ryan, but we'll hire you.
(39:37):
Just keep dreaming, Ryan.
Hey, what do you say to someone that keeps applying but they don't get the gig?
What are you doing wrong?
Oof.
I mean, is that it?
You just say you're messed up?
You would have to assume they don't interview well, and that would be my first assumption.
(39:58):
If I didn't know them, if I didn't have a relationship with them to kind of be able
to see those idiosyncrasies or those weak spots, you would have ... My first inclination
is it wasn't a good interview.
Or sometimes, a lot of times, in K-12, the position is already filled before it's gone
out for posting.
(40:19):
Sometimes a position has to be posted and the district knows who they're going to hire.
If you get a rejection in an interview, don't take it personally.
Sometimes unfortunately, it's just the nature of the beast.
I don't think I've ever told this story.
When they posted the job that I have now, I called the central office and spoke with
(40:41):
the CFO, whoever was in charge of hiring at the time.
I flat out asked.
I said, is this position really open or do you guys have someone already marked for this
job and you just have to open it to open it?
You would say that.
You would ask that question.
Yeah.
I mean ... And you got it, too?
Yeah.
Wow.
(41:03):
Did you say ... Did you use a different name?
No.
No.
No.
No.
I was also, after I interviewed, I found a number of things ...
You were like, hey, this is Chris.
Is that why I didn't get that job?
Yeah.
I found a few things wrong during my interview, like very concerning things.
(41:26):
I called the CFO back.
I'm like, hey, whoever you hire is your thing, but you need to make a list.
These things need to be fixed right away.
Only you would criticize your own district before you're even hired for your own district.
I love that.
But they didn't have a director before.
They didn't have anyone.
I would never do that, but I love that you did that.
(41:49):
Really?
Wow.
Yeah, really.
I would never do that.
I mean, that's ... Okay.
I don't know.
That's not out of scope for me, I guess.
You guess.
I know.
That's not out of scope for you.
I'm not afraid to have difficult conversations, I guess.
Hey, I've got some breaking news here.
(42:11):
Missouri, the New Madrid Fault Line, Mark, you will enjoy this because I feel like you
enjoy rural Missouri stories.
I do.
I do, more than anything in life.
The New Madrid Fault, which is the fault line that had the big 1812 earthquake or whatever,
it just registered its largest earthquake of the year just this afternoon in Cooter,
(42:37):
Missouri, is the name of the town.
It shook Cooter.
Well, you should really cut to an ad or a sponsor or something.
We gots to go.
We gots to go.
Yeah.
This is going to be the wrap it up symbol.
It's all true.
It's all true.
Speaking of gots to go, we've got a couple of conferences coming up that we're going
(42:58):
to be going to.
I'll get us out of this.
Let's see.
We have, we just did COSEN.
COSEN was a great time.
Listen to that episode.
April 30th through May 1st, Hayden with K-12 Tech Pro will be at the Nebraska Conference
NETA.
The next week after that-ish, May 11th, is Actum, up your way, Mark, in Maine.
(43:23):
And then fast forward a little bit, we're going to be at the Gamus Conference July 6th
through the 10th in Georgia.
We'll all be three together hanging out in beautiful Savannah, Georgia.
And that's thanks to listeners and thanks to our sponsors, NTP.
You can email David Wren at dwren at ntp-inc.com.
Fortinet, get your Fortinet products from Fortinet Podcast at fortinet.com.
(43:48):
And then if you need some SSO, MFA, analytics, identity and access management, you can get
that from Classlink at classlink.com.
All right.
Anything else, boys?
No earthquake updates.
All right.
Well, if you have any questions for us, like Ryan did, shoot us an email.
If you want motivational phone calls, let us know, Chris will call you.
(44:14):
And then if you want to be talked off the ledge, Mark will call you.
Shoot us an email, k12techtalk at gmail.com.
Share us with your friends.
And we will see you next week.
(44:36):
The views and opinions expressed on the K-12 Tech Talk podcast are the personal opinions
of Josh, Chris and Mark and do not represent the views or opinions of our sponsors or other
organizations that we're affiliated with.
The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment
purposes only.
Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
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