March 29, 2023 • 28 mins
How do you balance technological accessibility and cybersecurity? This is a question many school districts have asked over the past several years. Particularly during remote learning, many districts challenged their preconceived notions on accessibility and cybersecurity, leading to many robust changes in districts nationwide.
In this conversation, special guests Doug Thompson and Henry Martin discuss how schools can best implement transformative IT and ensure that sensitive data protection maintains its secure status through collaborative planning and execution.
Doug Thompson is the Chief Education Architect at Tanium. He is a passionate storyteller, TEDx speaker, Go Tanium Tech Stories Podcast host and digital transformation warrior. After a 20-year stint at Microsoft, he came to Tanium, where he acts as a Tanium Technical Solutions Engineer and Education Strategist. He has been involved in the Education arena for over a decade, working with some of the US's largest K-12 and Higher Education institutions.
Henry Martin is the Chief Information Officer at Walton County School District in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, and is a member of the Florida Technology Council. Henry has streamlined and established career pathways and professional development for IT personnel across the district.
A key takeaway from this conversation is the power of collaboration in creating innovative systems and the importance of patching and communication for managing automated systems.
This episode of The CoSN Podcast is supported by Tanium.
Engage further in the discussion on Twitter. Follow: @CoSN, @edCircuit, @Tanium
The CoSN Podcast is produced in partnership with edCircuit. To learn more about CoSN, visit www.cosn.org, and to learn more about at edCircuit, visit www.edcircuit.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to the coast and podcast.
Produced in partnership with Ed circuit media.
In organization focused entirelyon the K20, Ed tech industry and
empowering. The voices that can provide
guidance and expertise in facilitating.
The appropriate usage of digital, technology in
education, Ed circuit Elevate, the voices of today's Innovative
(00:25):
thought, leaders and experts koston represents over 13
million. Ants in districts and
educational institutions, Nationwide and continues to grow
as a powerful and influential voice in K-12 education, this
high-profile series showcases industry, thought leaders and
Executives who provide timely Market insights and critical
(00:48):
guidance, on various educationaltechnology, strategies, hello,
and welcome to the coast and podcast.
My name is James pal, sick with Ed circuit on behalf of cosine
and Today's sponsor Taney. Mmm, we have a very exciting
discussion on the transformational journey
districts are now taking when itcomes to it.
(01:09):
Joining me today are Doug Thompson and Henry Martin.
Doug Thompson is the chief education.
Architect attain IAM. He is a passionate Storyteller.
A tedx speaker host of the goat,a medium Tech Stories podcast
and a digital transformation. Warrior after a 20 year stint at
Microsoft, came to Taney, mm, where he acts as the tinium
(01:33):
Technical Solutions engineer andeducational strategist.
He has been involved in the education arena for over a
decade working with some of the largest K12 school districts and
post-secondary institutions in the United States.
Doug can be found sharing his passion for storytelling by
(01:53):
sharing lessons on LinkedIn and the Doug Thompson podcast.
He believes that everyone has a story and it's just a matter of
unlocking it from the grips of the subconscious mind.
Welcome to the podcast. Doug, Thanks.
Have you been here? I think I need to shorten it by
a little bit. I think I took up all their
time. Oh no, it's great more
(02:15):
accolades, the better thank you for being here.
And also joining us is Henry Martin, who serves as the Chief
Information officer at Walton County School, District in
Florida and a member of the Florida Technology Council.
As the CIO for Walton County School District Henry is
responsible for providing technology and Technical Support
(02:36):
Services for the entire Districtduring his time.
At Walton County Henry established an enrollment for
Education Solutions or EES agreement that saved the
district well over 300,000 dollars.
He has been able to streamline and establish career Pathways
and professional development forIT personnel across the
(02:58):
district. Henry also instituted the BYOD
or bring your own device Networkand a policy that allowed all
students and staff a blended work environment in the
classroom because now they wouldbe able to work with the device.
They feel most familiar or comfortable with Henry, also
created a Broadband Broadband committee that oversaw the
(03:21):
connection to existing fiber that runs throughout Walton
County this effort alone. Saved the taxpayers over 20
million dollars. Welcome to the podcast Henry
Thank you, glad to be here. It is an honor and a privilege
to have you both here today and I am looking forward to this
(03:41):
discussion and for all of you listening.
Welcome to today's podcast Henry.
Let's start today's discussion by learning more about your
specific role as the CIO of Walton County School District.
If you can please share with ourlisteners, some of the
implementations that you've added to the district.
Like the BYOD Network. I just mentioned Sure.
(04:06):
So first of all, I'll begin by stating that I've been in
education for 39 years and Walton County for the past nine
years. So there's been a lot of changes
over the years and a lot of things have been implemented but
recently you know some of the bigger things that have been
going on. We're currently underway on a
(04:28):
new wi-fi system we're upgradingto Wi-Fi 6 which we hold great
expectations for Or as far as Balaam beach.
Every single student, every classroom, and be able to
maintain a wireless environment for the entire staff and
District employees. Also setting up security systems
(04:49):
throughout as far as routers andeach site isolating each site.
As far as keeping the security posture where it needs to be,
We're constantly upgrading devices as far as a computer
refresh and things like that. We are also implementing digital
(05:11):
panels in the classroom, which the teachers thoroughly enjoy
having a smart television. Let's say, or digital touch
panel where they can actually have the interaction with
students and teachers, and it seems to be a great learning
tool that we use in the classroom.
One of the other things that we implemented in the last couple
(05:33):
years was Taney. Mm.
And it was kind of a unique Interesting process.
How it started. We were actually.
Through the Fuller Technology Council.
They asked if we would actually pilate it so I thought that
would be a great idea. So we brought him in, we started
(05:53):
the pilot process and as a limited staff of nine employees
under me, you know, we wear a lot of hats so we don't have a
lot of people that can spend a lot of time on one specific
task. So when we brought it in and we
currently were patching and things like that and we thought
(06:15):
are patching system was okay. One of the things that really
enlightened me is when we ran Taney, mm, and our previous
application at the same time, onPatch Tuesday.
And we wanted to see, you know, what would work?
And so Taney. Mm, actually went out with both
of them running was probably about Out 20% more patching than
(06:41):
the previous application. And it actually went out.
Not only patch the machines and fixed other issues to help the
patching process, move forward. So that would be.
I open the experience for us is that we didn't even realize that
some of these machines weren't even being patched.
So that was something that was tremendous for us.
(07:04):
The other thing that really was a Godsend for us, is that we
actually found an exploit and our environment was a dll
injection. And, so, we're doing the pilot
at the time. And we, and I was talking to my
network administrator, I said, hey, let's let's try taniyama.
(07:25):
See if we can figure this out. So what we did is, we actually
ran through our environment said, find all the dll
injection, and the code that we were looking for, and let's see
if it's anywhere else in the district.
Well, we found on probably about30 other machines that had that
same dll injection. We were able to go out and
(07:47):
remediate this resolved that issue with a very short amount
of time. And we wouldn't have had any
idea that these other injectionswere in these other machines
unless they would have been completely compromised and shut
down. So those were the two big things
in the beginning that kind of sold me on Taney.
Mm, and, you know, I just I thought that was a great thing
(08:11):
to actually help my environment.Especially I don't have that the
extra IT staff to be able to manage this just on it own.
So we actually you do this part time and we're able to keep up
on that. That was a great,
multi-dimensional answer, to be honest.
And, and that has definitely provided a great platform for
(08:32):
Doug. So Doug you work with a lot of
District cios. I imagine in your room.
Role. Would you say that?
What Henry just described? That's an accurate.
Despite an accurate description.Yeah, I would, I would say both
things one that you know it and especially in K through 12 is
woefully understaffed from a device per support person
(08:54):
perspective. I talked to my commercial
counterparts all the time and you know, they're complaining
about, you know, one person for,you know, two or three hundred
machines. I said, okay.
Yeah, tried thousands of machines per tag and see what
you can do from that. Point.
So the ability to scale and ability to, you know, there's
things happening that you don't know about that's pretty common
(09:15):
in this. A lot of it has to do with sort
of the older way of doing thingsthat we've been in there.
And you know this whole things about transformational and Henry
started on that journey by finding out what he didn't know.
And I think that's that's the critical piece is you're only as
good and able to protect as muchas what you know about and he
was able to find that. And then, you know, just as
(09:37):
importantly Be able to sort of automatically go back and do
something with it. So again it frees up your staff
to do other things and I think Henry sort of Hit Upon that.
This now, what used to be a fulltime plus effort is sort of now
have a part-time job so they canbe freed up to do other things.
I think that's absolutely fantastic, especially with the
(09:58):
human resource. Allocations that exists in
multiple departments, and schoolsystems.
So thank you very much for both of those answers.
That's great. Where does your student and
faculty personally, identifiable, information data,
reside and how well is it protected are your districts.
It assets protected from the latest ransomware, vulnerability
(10:20):
protecting this info and reducing your attacks.
Service starts with knowing what's in your environment
Taney. Mm provides a platform and
practical advice on how schools it teams can defend against new
threats, meet budget pressures and protect District data
through full Network. Visibility you can't protect
what you can't see learn more atTaney.
(10:43):
M.com backslash education, I think we should touch on on
something that was just mentioned here and let's talk
about that transformation. A tional journey that districts
are now taking specifically regarding it, technology and
security. So Doug let's stick with you.
And then Henry, if you can, I'd like you to jump in from a
(11:06):
district perspective and really talk about a typical
transformational Journey that school districts are taking
Doug. It's all yours.
Sure. Thanks.
And you know, on one I haven't been in the education business
quite as long as Henry had, eventhough I'm probably older than
he is, But I got here as fast asI could, to quote, somebody
(11:26):
going to move to Texas in the time I've been here.
You know, I'm always been sort of evangelizing even in my
previous role evangelizing, the need to transform the way things
are done because there's a lot of capabilities and things that
are out there. The bad guys have no, no
hesitancy in taking up, whateverthe latest and greatest
technology is to sort of breach and wreak havoc.
(11:48):
And it's you know, in having this discussion I kept running
this roadblock. What we don't Have time, we
don't have any of the technologywasn't there to do it.
And I think covid, one of the things it did show is that we
can do hard things, you know, I looked at the staff and I look
at this, the accounts that I wasworking with and do the things
that they were able to do in just a few months was amazing
(12:10):
when they were, you know, all things were sort of taken off
the table. They had to do it.
So they Rose to that challenge. And what I'm seeing now is serve
continuation of that momentum in.
Okay, let's transform this. You shoot.
To use this as a as a starting off place to really sort of
break, make ourselves ready for the next, the next wave of
(12:31):
things that ourselves up for thefuture.
So they sort of did a leapfrog in this transformational journey
to say. Okay look we need to get in the
21st century here and we're going to do that in this sets us
up for going on forward and there is more than technology.
You know the technology piece ofit is nice but it's the thought
leadership and the ability to sort of see around the corners
(12:51):
and really brings Two people to top of mind, we had a higher ed
customer that the changes it made in the staff and the Henry
can probably talk about this. The changes that made the staffs
attitude and ability to do things that were cool.
You always ask it people. Why did you get an it?
Not one of them ever says to patch, you know, it was usually
to do cool things, right? So this frees them up to go back
(13:15):
to doing those cool things and you met is amazing, what it
does, for them around and then of the team.
Is that, is that an accurate reflection?
Henry of a transformational journey from a school district
perspective? Absolutely, you know, one of the
things that and it we try to do is, you know, our goal is to
(13:36):
actually create a learning environment for students and
that's what we're about. That's that's what I like to
say. Is my vision is creating that
that teaching and learning experience inside a classroom.
Unfortunately we have to deal with the Cyber security and
security aspect of it, and that's becoming a very large
(13:57):
part of what we have to deal with nowadays.
And so any type of tool that we can utilize to help us combat,
some of these issues, with the lack of staff, is a tremendous
benefit to us. We have to realize that we have
to learn to work smart, and we have to be able to utilize the
(14:17):
correct tools to help us in our environment when I started.
It into technology security was not a big deal.
It just, you know, it just wasn't there necessarily and now
my entire job just revolves around security whether its
policy. Its insurance, it's protecting
students protecting information,it's a full-time job and
(14:42):
unfortunately most school districts don't have the staff
to actually maintain a complete environment so we have to use
utilize Tools that are going to help us get where we need to get
you know with limited amount of resources.
Not only financially but also with the actual physical
resources here in the follow-up.I think you know Henry hit upon
(15:04):
the point is the technology should Fade Into the background.
The primary job of schools is toteach children and have that
environment. So technology done, right?
You don't even know it's there. Exactly, that's powerful.
I have to say that that is a powerful statement, Duggan and
Henry and I'm glad that you saidthat because Does that is the
ultimate goal the objective. Now, Henry along that seam being
(15:26):
you mentioned that that looking at your, it security and support
that existed within your school district that really LED you to
look outside the standard or typical approach that school
districts were using and bring you wanted to be future-ready.
You're looking to deal with those future challenges.
(15:48):
Is that what led you to Taney? Mmm.
Yeah, I was looking for a tool that was going to help me do
actually several things, you know.
And one of the things that I always didn't have an insight to
was the deposits of my environment.
(16:09):
And for example, when we push out applications many times will
push him out to machines and they'll be on there and then
they upgrade and things like that.
Then all of a sudden you have all this clutter on these
machines. Tinium.
Help me go out there and pick out certain versions of
applications that I would leave on a machine and I could remove
(16:29):
the rest, so he kept me up to date with the the proper version
that I needed for the Cs CTE class.
Maybe it had to be one version back compared to the rest of the
district and things like that. So a tool that helped me go out
and do things from the district office where I didn't have to go
out and physically touch every single machine saves us.
(16:51):
Us amount of time and resources and completing those jobs.
Wow, that is great and I can imagine that that the human
capital element that you talked about.
There is is very thankful that you have that technology to
enable you to do that at a much faster rate and a more efficient
rate than what you would do typically without some outside
(17:15):
trusted. Third party supplier, you're
absolutely correct. And the other thing is that we
have great leadership. Ben Walton County and they're
standing behind because they realized that we need the proper
tools to get the job done. We can't necessarily High
higher, all the people that we need but you know, to get the
tools out there to put them in the hands of the technicians so
(17:37):
they can go out and do their job.
You know, it's very it's a good feeling to know you have the
support of leadership that that's backing you and helping
you move towards that goal of creating that learning
environment. And making it the most
efficient. It can be well, so no dog.
I want to go back to something. You had brought up on one of
(17:57):
your previous comments. I'm taking notes here just so
you know, you probably take better notes than I do.
Are you able to share with our audience?
Some of the common threats that a school district, really needs
to be prepared for sure. Happy to have you do that.
A lot of them haven't changed the vector that the attack does,
(18:19):
but most of the breaches in If that you see your ransomware and
and you know the sort of fishingthings are still the primary way
to get in in there. And, you know, the carbon-based
life form that has control of a mouse is still the most
dangerous thing that you have, you know, clicking a link here,
something like that. And that's true.
(18:40):
Many Enterprise lie, they have that.
But the threats now you with remote learning in all the
challenges that a lot of people that I talk to have is the
inability to Sort of not only see but I like calling it have a
conversation with her end pointsregardless of where they are, if
they're online. When I grew up there was this TV
(19:01):
commercial, you know, it's 10:00.
Do You Know Where Your Children Are?
Well, I sort of asked the same thing, you know, it's 10:00, you
know, where your your devices are the ability that taining
doesn't, there's a couple thingsone of them Henry had on
earlier. I'm going to back up for just a
second is the things he was talking about are very manual
processes and that most people go through and that's why they
don't get Updated this, this version sprawl is a problem and
(19:25):
you mentioned security type things browser updates.
It's not uncommon for me to go into an institution in find,
they may be in - 7 versions of browsers out of dating.
We always know that the majorityof the updates to browsers and
for security holes. So you've got these gaping holes
that allow there was a study in 2019 that over 60% of the
(19:46):
breaches were exploiting exploitations.
Vulnerabilities that have been out over two years, right?
So that's just sort of Good Housekeeping and the challenge
is is very time. Consuming a lot of manpower to
go do these things in the traditional way of doing it.
Where if you can automate those tasks where it's just simply
hey, we're setting this. We're automatically update the
(20:08):
browser's whenever they come outwe're on.
Am actually going. You'll stick to n minus one
version, it most of an application.
The operating system is always up to date.
Then if you automate that, then you can spend your time I'm
doing, you know the deeper things looking for those dll
injections is going to be talkedabout looking for the outliers
because I'm automated the what we call Hygiene piece of that
(20:32):
and that you can freeze your resources up to do things that
they're humans are really made to do more creative and more
insightful things and simply yeah I'm going to deploy a patch
or do these other things. So that's really what Henry's
taking advantage of to do in part of that transformation is
automating. What you can.
And then, I want you to focus on.
What's what's the more urgent today?
(20:54):
And while we're talking about automation, Doug are there any?
Are there, any risks of automation?
I mean, I've heard all the benefits you just mentioned.
Are there any risks associated with that?
You have sure you some of it is that you're not checking doing
the math. You have doing it intermittently
going in and say, is this doing what it's supposed to be doing?
You know having reporting? Okay.
(21:15):
Yes, we are patch to these otherthings going out.
There was a, you know, there wasa patch that came out from on
Patch Tuesday. I think it was last month that
caused some domain controllers. Not to be able to boot into
secure mode. The secure OS and it had to be
recalled and stuff. So always you know I don't
(21:37):
suggest willy-nilly just automatically accepting
everything you should have sort of this test ring that goes in
but if you can automate, the patch is going to the test ring,
then evaluate okay. Is this fine?
Did it break anything? Then expand that, again, you can
automate the expansion of that your is trust, but If I would
quote an old president very, very well said.
(21:59):
And Henry, please please share with us and our listeners, of
course, some of the steps that you've taken in in Walton
County, when it comes to automation, there's there's
several things that will do and go back to tanning as far as the
patch management and deploying those, that's that's huge for us
(22:20):
because we have to make sure that number one.
One that the computers are up todate that they have the proper
security, patches installed. And not only, we have to have
the security patches but the applications that need these
upgrades. They have to be put in place as
far as when they're needed. Like you say going back to the
automation piece, not everythingis going to have to be automated
(22:43):
or can be automated. So you have to still look at
what's out there. Maybe you have to actually go in
and tell it which version to putin which version not to put in
and things like that. And To be looking at reports and
things of that nature. So you have to be proactive, you
know, you have to have the automation piece but you have to
be proactive to make sure that what you have in place is doing
(23:05):
its job. That's one of the big things as
far as that goes through is the Premier membership organization
designed to meet the needs of K-12 education, technology
leaders their resources, supportthe entire it infrastructure of
the school system kosan offers members, access to their
thought, leaders across The country, and the ability to
(23:25):
actively participate in local codes and chapters.
Join the network today, by visiting cosom dot-org, and
become another influential voicein K-12 education.
I'm curious as an educator myself.
Let's talk about professional development.
Okay? And how that, how that applies
into the IT realm. Like, how were you able to get
(23:46):
all of your technicians and all of your it professionals more
involved in these activities that made your school's more
secure and safer. So yeah, the professional
development is a huge part of it.
That is something that that we have to have ongoing, always
learning new. That are coming out.
Always learning new techniques. One of the things that we did
(24:10):
take advantage of with Taney. Mm is something that's called a
tam. We have a weekly meeting with
this technician and he actually can help us with questions that
were going through. Some things that came up, so
it's a learning process that happens consistently.
And so every week we meet, we discuss, we talk about certain
(24:33):
issues and we're learning Learning new strategies and new
techniques on a very consistent basis and we're really a, you
know, this is the first time we've had a tam and this type of
environment. And so we really become to
understand how beneficial it is to have that that technician
working with us on going for whether it's professional
(24:57):
development, whether it's just asking questions, learning new
techniques. It's one of the very robust
things that we actually have with the tanning product.
And Doug, please add some more Dimension to that from your
perspective at a neum. Please sure.
And that's one of the things, I mean, with everything as a
(25:19):
service now new features are, it's almost impossible to keep
up with what's coming out and a lot of the things that we do at
Taney. Mmm.
A lot of the features that we add our based off customer
feedback. Our customer needs things like
that that we've seen on the field and the technical account
manager. The Henry's talking about part
of that conversation is not over.
Only, hey, here's what's new. And we know because we've had
(25:42):
this relationship that, you know, months ago, we talked
about XYZ we can do X & Y. Now, let me show you how to do
that, right? How to take advantage of it or,
you know, a lot of the times they have, you know, the
technical managers are like myself where I call myself sort
of like a honey bee. My job is just sort of go visit
all these flowers. That spread pollen around, you
(26:04):
know, what's the good thing thatwe're seeing every other place
and that's part of it, you know?It is We have a broader view
that we could come back and bring and share with our
customers. But, you know, so they get value
out of their investment but alsothat they can then give us
feedback back to, how do we makethis better?
It would be 20% better if we could do this this way or faster
(26:26):
or something like that. So that's, you know, it's the
two-way communication between Taney, mm, and our customers,
that is really the value that, you know, that's what I really
loved about it. When I looked at ATM was that
sort of Engagement that they Have is really great.
Well, gentlemen, I have to say, I am more informed now that I
was before and just to recap, this transformational journey,
(26:50):
especially in the area of it across school systems.
It's not just a single Dimension.
We've talked about the cyber security and and protections
that are there. We've talked about automation
the importance of professional development and learning talked
about the benefit of collaboration.
Break sharing all of that known information to make your schools
(27:13):
safer and more secure and provide those great learning
environments for our students. Our most precious assets are
children and Doug give any finalwords for us.
Thanks James. Thanks, Henry for being one, a
customer, but joining us today telling your story.
You're an example of transformational leadership, for
(27:34):
sure. Just think differently, don't be
afraid. To get out my advice to
everybody, I say, is what would you look like in three years?
What do you envision life to be in three years?
Is that the same as it is today?Or is it with new tools or is it
just simply, hey, the business is run completely different.
And that's sort of what Henry did we can do this better.
(27:57):
There's a new way to do it. So don't be afraid to think
differently. All right, then I guess the last
point is be future-ready always be mindful of what is coming and
whatever you're anticipating? Probably it'll be worse.
That's probably true. Yes.
All right. Well again, thank you both so so
much. It's been my pleasure and my
(28:18):
honor to have you here today andon behalf of Ed circuit and
kosan. Thank you both so much on behalf
of the leadership team at kosan.Thank you for listening to this
episode of the coast and podcastto Other podcasts in the series
visit kosan dot org or Ed circuit.com for complete lineup
of engaging technology topics. Ed circuit empowers.
(28:40):
The voices of Education with hundreds of trusted contributors
changemakers and Industry leading education, innovators.
Other podcasts in the series visit kosan dot org or Ed
circuit.com for complete lineup of engaging technology topics.
Ed circuit empowers. The voices of Education with
hundreds of trusted contributorschangemakers and Industry
leading education, innovators.
Welcome to the coast and podcast.
Produced in partnership with Ed circuit media.
In organization focused entirelyon the K20, Ed tech industry and
empowering. The voices that can provide
guidance and expertise in facilitating.
The appropriate usage of digital, technology in
education, Ed circuit Elevate, the voices of today's Innovative
(00:25):
thought, leaders and experts koston represents over 13
million. Ants in districts and
educational institutions, Nationwide and continues to grow
as a powerful and influential voice in K-12 education, this
high-profile series showcases industry, thought leaders and
Executives who provide timely Market insights and critical
(00:48):
guidance, on various educationaltechnology, strategies, hello,
and welcome to the coast and podcast.
My name is James pal, sick with Ed circuit on behalf of cosine
and Today's sponsor Taney. Mmm, we have a very exciting
discussion on the transformational journey
districts are now taking when itcomes to it.
(01:09):
Joining me today are Doug Thompson and Henry Martin.
Doug Thompson is the chief education.
Architect attain IAM. He is a passionate Storyteller.
A tedx speaker host of the goat,a medium Tech Stories podcast
and a digital transformation. Warrior after a 20 year stint at
Microsoft, came to Taney, mm, where he acts as the tinium
(01:33):
Technical Solutions engineer andeducational strategist.
He has been involved in the education arena for over a
decade working with some of the largest K12 school districts and
post-secondary institutions in the United States.
Doug can be found sharing his passion for storytelling by
(01:53):
sharing lessons on LinkedIn and the Doug Thompson podcast.
He believes that everyone has a story and it's just a matter of
unlocking it from the grips of the subconscious mind.
Welcome to the podcast. Doug, Thanks.
Have you been here? I think I need to shorten it by
a little bit. I think I took up all their
time. Oh no, it's great more
(02:15):
accolades, the better thank you for being here.
And also joining us is Henry Martin, who serves as the Chief
Information officer at Walton County School, District in
Florida and a member of the Florida Technology Council.
As the CIO for Walton County School District Henry is
responsible for providing technology and Technical Support
(02:36):
Services for the entire Districtduring his time.
At Walton County Henry established an enrollment for
Education Solutions or EES agreement that saved the
district well over 300,000 dollars.
He has been able to streamline and establish career Pathways
and professional development forIT personnel across the
(02:58):
district. Henry also instituted the BYOD
or bring your own device Networkand a policy that allowed all
students and staff a blended work environment in the
classroom because now they wouldbe able to work with the device.
They feel most familiar or comfortable with Henry, also
created a Broadband Broadband committee that oversaw the
(03:21):
connection to existing fiber that runs throughout Walton
County this effort alone. Saved the taxpayers over 20
million dollars. Welcome to the podcast Henry
Thank you, glad to be here. It is an honor and a privilege
to have you both here today and I am looking forward to this
(03:41):
discussion and for all of you listening.
Welcome to today's podcast Henry.
Let's start today's discussion by learning more about your
specific role as the CIO of Walton County School District.
If you can please share with ourlisteners, some of the
implementations that you've added to the district.
Like the BYOD Network. I just mentioned Sure.
(04:06):
So first of all, I'll begin by stating that I've been in
education for 39 years and Walton County for the past nine
years. So there's been a lot of changes
over the years and a lot of things have been implemented but
recently you know some of the bigger things that have been
going on. We're currently underway on a
(04:28):
new wi-fi system we're upgradingto Wi-Fi 6 which we hold great
expectations for Or as far as Balaam beach.
Every single student, every classroom, and be able to
maintain a wireless environment for the entire staff and
District employees. Also setting up security systems
(04:49):
throughout as far as routers andeach site isolating each site.
As far as keeping the security posture where it needs to be,
We're constantly upgrading devices as far as a computer
refresh and things like that. We are also implementing digital
(05:11):
panels in the classroom, which the teachers thoroughly enjoy
having a smart television. Let's say, or digital touch
panel where they can actually have the interaction with
students and teachers, and it seems to be a great learning
tool that we use in the classroom.
One of the other things that we implemented in the last couple
(05:33):
years was Taney. Mm.
And it was kind of a unique Interesting process.
How it started. We were actually.
Through the Fuller Technology Council.
They asked if we would actually pilate it so I thought that
would be a great idea. So we brought him in, we started
(05:53):
the pilot process and as a limited staff of nine employees
under me, you know, we wear a lot of hats so we don't have a
lot of people that can spend a lot of time on one specific
task. So when we brought it in and we
currently were patching and things like that and we thought
(06:15):
are patching system was okay. One of the things that really
enlightened me is when we ran Taney, mm, and our previous
application at the same time, onPatch Tuesday.
And we wanted to see, you know, what would work?
And so Taney. Mm, actually went out with both
of them running was probably about Out 20% more patching than
(06:41):
the previous application. And it actually went out.
Not only patch the machines and fixed other issues to help the
patching process, move forward. So that would be.
I open the experience for us is that we didn't even realize that
some of these machines weren't even being patched.
So that was something that was tremendous for us.
(07:04):
The other thing that really was a Godsend for us, is that we
actually found an exploit and our environment was a dll
injection. And, so, we're doing the pilot
at the time. And we, and I was talking to my
network administrator, I said, hey, let's let's try taniyama.
(07:25):
See if we can figure this out. So what we did is, we actually
ran through our environment said, find all the dll
injection, and the code that we were looking for, and let's see
if it's anywhere else in the district.
Well, we found on probably about30 other machines that had that
same dll injection. We were able to go out and
(07:47):
remediate this resolved that issue with a very short amount
of time. And we wouldn't have had any
idea that these other injectionswere in these other machines
unless they would have been completely compromised and shut
down. So those were the two big things
in the beginning that kind of sold me on Taney.
Mm, and, you know, I just I thought that was a great thing
(08:11):
to actually help my environment.Especially I don't have that the
extra IT staff to be able to manage this just on it own.
So we actually you do this part time and we're able to keep up
on that. That was a great,
multi-dimensional answer, to be honest.
And, and that has definitely provided a great platform for
(08:32):
Doug. So Doug you work with a lot of
District cios. I imagine in your room.
Role. Would you say that?
What Henry just described? That's an accurate.
Despite an accurate description.Yeah, I would, I would say both
things one that you know it and especially in K through 12 is
woefully understaffed from a device per support person
(08:54):
perspective. I talked to my commercial
counterparts all the time and you know, they're complaining
about, you know, one person for,you know, two or three hundred
machines. I said, okay.
Yeah, tried thousands of machines per tag and see what
you can do from that. Point.
So the ability to scale and ability to, you know, there's
things happening that you don't know about that's pretty common
(09:15):
in this. A lot of it has to do with sort
of the older way of doing thingsthat we've been in there.
And you know this whole things about transformational and Henry
started on that journey by finding out what he didn't know.
And I think that's that's the critical piece is you're only as
good and able to protect as muchas what you know about and he
was able to find that. And then, you know, just as
(09:37):
importantly Be able to sort of automatically go back and do
something with it. So again it frees up your staff
to do other things and I think Henry sort of Hit Upon that.
This now, what used to be a fulltime plus effort is sort of now
have a part-time job so they canbe freed up to do other things.
I think that's absolutely fantastic, especially with the
(09:58):
human resource. Allocations that exists in
multiple departments, and schoolsystems.
So thank you very much for both of those answers.
That's great. Where does your student and
faculty personally, identifiable, information data,
reside and how well is it protected are your districts.
It assets protected from the latest ransomware, vulnerability
(10:20):
protecting this info and reducing your attacks.
Service starts with knowing what's in your environment
Taney. Mm provides a platform and
practical advice on how schools it teams can defend against new
threats, meet budget pressures and protect District data
through full Network. Visibility you can't protect
what you can't see learn more atTaney.
(10:43):
M.com backslash education, I think we should touch on on
something that was just mentioned here and let's talk
about that transformation. A tional journey that districts
are now taking specifically regarding it, technology and
security. So Doug let's stick with you.
And then Henry, if you can, I'd like you to jump in from a
(11:06):
district perspective and really talk about a typical
transformational Journey that school districts are taking
Doug. It's all yours.
Sure. Thanks.
And you know, on one I haven't been in the education business
quite as long as Henry had, eventhough I'm probably older than
he is, But I got here as fast asI could, to quote, somebody
(11:26):
going to move to Texas in the time I've been here.
You know, I'm always been sort of evangelizing even in my
previous role evangelizing, the need to transform the way things
are done because there's a lot of capabilities and things that
are out there. The bad guys have no, no
hesitancy in taking up, whateverthe latest and greatest
technology is to sort of breach and wreak havoc.
(11:48):
And it's you know, in having this discussion I kept running
this roadblock. What we don't Have time, we
don't have any of the technologywasn't there to do it.
And I think covid, one of the things it did show is that we
can do hard things, you know, I looked at the staff and I look
at this, the accounts that I wasworking with and do the things
that they were able to do in just a few months was amazing
(12:10):
when they were, you know, all things were sort of taken off
the table. They had to do it.
So they Rose to that challenge. And what I'm seeing now is serve
continuation of that momentum in.
Okay, let's transform this. You shoot.
To use this as a as a starting off place to really sort of
break, make ourselves ready for the next, the next wave of
(12:31):
things that ourselves up for thefuture.
So they sort of did a leapfrog in this transformational journey
to say. Okay look we need to get in the
21st century here and we're going to do that in this sets us
up for going on forward and there is more than technology.
You know the technology piece ofit is nice but it's the thought
leadership and the ability to sort of see around the corners
(12:51):
and really brings Two people to top of mind, we had a higher ed
customer that the changes it made in the staff and the Henry
can probably talk about this. The changes that made the staffs
attitude and ability to do things that were cool.
You always ask it people. Why did you get an it?
Not one of them ever says to patch, you know, it was usually
to do cool things, right? So this frees them up to go back
(13:15):
to doing those cool things and you met is amazing, what it
does, for them around and then of the team.
Is that, is that an accurate reflection?
Henry of a transformational journey from a school district
perspective? Absolutely, you know, one of the
things that and it we try to do is, you know, our goal is to
(13:36):
actually create a learning environment for students and
that's what we're about. That's that's what I like to
say. Is my vision is creating that
that teaching and learning experience inside a classroom.
Unfortunately we have to deal with the Cyber security and
security aspect of it, and that's becoming a very large
(13:57):
part of what we have to deal with nowadays.
And so any type of tool that we can utilize to help us combat,
some of these issues, with the lack of staff, is a tremendous
benefit to us. We have to realize that we have
to learn to work smart, and we have to be able to utilize the
(14:17):
correct tools to help us in our environment when I started.
It into technology security was not a big deal.
It just, you know, it just wasn't there necessarily and now
my entire job just revolves around security whether its
policy. Its insurance, it's protecting
students protecting information,it's a full-time job and
(14:42):
unfortunately most school districts don't have the staff
to actually maintain a complete environment so we have to use
utilize Tools that are going to help us get where we need to get
you know with limited amount of resources.
Not only financially but also with the actual physical
resources here in the follow-up.I think you know Henry hit upon
(15:04):
the point is the technology should Fade Into the background.
The primary job of schools is toteach children and have that
environment. So technology done, right?
You don't even know it's there. Exactly, that's powerful.
I have to say that that is a powerful statement, Duggan and
Henry and I'm glad that you saidthat because Does that is the
ultimate goal the objective. Now, Henry along that seam being
(15:26):
you mentioned that that looking at your, it security and support
that existed within your school district that really LED you to
look outside the standard or typical approach that school
districts were using and bring you wanted to be future-ready.
You're looking to deal with those future challenges.
(15:48):
Is that what led you to Taney? Mmm.
Yeah, I was looking for a tool that was going to help me do
actually several things, you know.
And one of the things that I always didn't have an insight to
was the deposits of my environment.
(16:09):
And for example, when we push out applications many times will
push him out to machines and they'll be on there and then
they upgrade and things like that.
Then all of a sudden you have all this clutter on these
machines. Tinium.
Help me go out there and pick out certain versions of
applications that I would leave on a machine and I could remove
(16:29):
the rest, so he kept me up to date with the the proper version
that I needed for the Cs CTE class.
Maybe it had to be one version back compared to the rest of the
district and things like that. So a tool that helped me go out
and do things from the district office where I didn't have to go
out and physically touch every single machine saves us.
(16:51):
Us amount of time and resources and completing those jobs.
Wow, that is great and I can imagine that that the human
capital element that you talked about.
There is is very thankful that you have that technology to
enable you to do that at a much faster rate and a more efficient
rate than what you would do typically without some outside
(17:15):
trusted. Third party supplier, you're
absolutely correct. And the other thing is that we
have great leadership. Ben Walton County and they're
standing behind because they realized that we need the proper
tools to get the job done. We can't necessarily High
higher, all the people that we need but you know, to get the
tools out there to put them in the hands of the technicians so
(17:37):
they can go out and do their job.
You know, it's very it's a good feeling to know you have the
support of leadership that that's backing you and helping
you move towards that goal of creating that learning
environment. And making it the most
efficient. It can be well, so no dog.
I want to go back to something. You had brought up on one of
(17:57):
your previous comments. I'm taking notes here just so
you know, you probably take better notes than I do.
Are you able to share with our audience?
Some of the common threats that a school district, really needs
to be prepared for sure. Happy to have you do that.
A lot of them haven't changed the vector that the attack does,
(18:19):
but most of the breaches in If that you see your ransomware and
and you know the sort of fishingthings are still the primary way
to get in in there. And, you know, the carbon-based
life form that has control of a mouse is still the most
dangerous thing that you have, you know, clicking a link here,
something like that. And that's true.
(18:40):
Many Enterprise lie, they have that.
But the threats now you with remote learning in all the
challenges that a lot of people that I talk to have is the
inability to Sort of not only see but I like calling it have a
conversation with her end pointsregardless of where they are, if
they're online. When I grew up there was this TV
(19:01):
commercial, you know, it's 10:00.
Do You Know Where Your Children Are?
Well, I sort of asked the same thing, you know, it's 10:00, you
know, where your your devices are the ability that taining
doesn't, there's a couple thingsone of them Henry had on
earlier. I'm going to back up for just a
second is the things he was talking about are very manual
processes and that most people go through and that's why they
don't get Updated this, this version sprawl is a problem and
(19:25):
you mentioned security type things browser updates.
It's not uncommon for me to go into an institution in find,
they may be in - 7 versions of browsers out of dating.
We always know that the majorityof the updates to browsers and
for security holes. So you've got these gaping holes
that allow there was a study in 2019 that over 60% of the
(19:46):
breaches were exploiting exploitations.
Vulnerabilities that have been out over two years, right?
So that's just sort of Good Housekeeping and the challenge
is is very time. Consuming a lot of manpower to
go do these things in the traditional way of doing it.
Where if you can automate those tasks where it's just simply
hey, we're setting this. We're automatically update the
(20:08):
browser's whenever they come outwe're on.
Am actually going. You'll stick to n minus one
version, it most of an application.
The operating system is always up to date.
Then if you automate that, then you can spend your time I'm
doing, you know the deeper things looking for those dll
injections is going to be talkedabout looking for the outliers
because I'm automated the what we call Hygiene piece of that
(20:32):
and that you can freeze your resources up to do things that
they're humans are really made to do more creative and more
insightful things and simply yeah I'm going to deploy a patch
or do these other things. So that's really what Henry's
taking advantage of to do in part of that transformation is
automating. What you can.
And then, I want you to focus on.
What's what's the more urgent today?
(20:54):
And while we're talking about automation, Doug are there any?
Are there, any risks of automation?
I mean, I've heard all the benefits you just mentioned.
Are there any risks associated with that?
You have sure you some of it is that you're not checking doing
the math. You have doing it intermittently
going in and say, is this doing what it's supposed to be doing?
You know having reporting? Okay.
(21:15):
Yes, we are patch to these otherthings going out.
There was a, you know, there wasa patch that came out from on
Patch Tuesday. I think it was last month that
caused some domain controllers. Not to be able to boot into
secure mode. The secure OS and it had to be
recalled and stuff. So always you know I don't
(21:37):
suggest willy-nilly just automatically accepting
everything you should have sort of this test ring that goes in
but if you can automate, the patch is going to the test ring,
then evaluate okay. Is this fine?
Did it break anything? Then expand that, again, you can
automate the expansion of that your is trust, but If I would
quote an old president very, very well said.
(21:59):
And Henry, please please share with us and our listeners, of
course, some of the steps that you've taken in in Walton
County, when it comes to automation, there's there's
several things that will do and go back to tanning as far as the
patch management and deploying those, that's that's huge for us
(22:20):
because we have to make sure that number one.
One that the computers are up todate that they have the proper
security, patches installed. And not only, we have to have
the security patches but the applications that need these
upgrades. They have to be put in place as
far as when they're needed. Like you say going back to the
automation piece, not everythingis going to have to be automated
(22:43):
or can be automated. So you have to still look at
what's out there. Maybe you have to actually go in
and tell it which version to putin which version not to put in
and things like that. And To be looking at reports and
things of that nature. So you have to be proactive, you
know, you have to have the automation piece but you have to
be proactive to make sure that what you have in place is doing
(23:05):
its job. That's one of the big things as
far as that goes through is the Premier membership organization
designed to meet the needs of K-12 education, technology
leaders their resources, supportthe entire it infrastructure of
the school system kosan offers members, access to their
thought, leaders across The country, and the ability to
(23:25):
actively participate in local codes and chapters.
Join the network today, by visiting cosom dot-org, and
become another influential voicein K-12 education.
I'm curious as an educator myself.
Let's talk about professional development.
Okay? And how that, how that applies
into the IT realm. Like, how were you able to get
(23:46):
all of your technicians and all of your it professionals more
involved in these activities that made your school's more
secure and safer. So yeah, the professional
development is a huge part of it.
That is something that that we have to have ongoing, always
learning new. That are coming out.
Always learning new techniques. One of the things that we did
(24:10):
take advantage of with Taney. Mm is something that's called a
tam. We have a weekly meeting with
this technician and he actually can help us with questions that
were going through. Some things that came up, so
it's a learning process that happens consistently.
And so every week we meet, we discuss, we talk about certain
(24:33):
issues and we're learning Learning new strategies and new
techniques on a very consistent basis and we're really a, you
know, this is the first time we've had a tam and this type of
environment. And so we really become to
understand how beneficial it is to have that that technician
working with us on going for whether it's professional
(24:57):
development, whether it's just asking questions, learning new
techniques. It's one of the very robust
things that we actually have with the tanning product.
And Doug, please add some more Dimension to that from your
perspective at a neum. Please sure.
And that's one of the things, I mean, with everything as a
(25:19):
service now new features are, it's almost impossible to keep
up with what's coming out and a lot of the things that we do at
Taney. Mmm.
A lot of the features that we add our based off customer
feedback. Our customer needs things like
that that we've seen on the field and the technical account
manager. The Henry's talking about part
of that conversation is not over.
Only, hey, here's what's new. And we know because we've had
(25:42):
this relationship that, you know, months ago, we talked
about XYZ we can do X & Y. Now, let me show you how to do
that, right? How to take advantage of it or,
you know, a lot of the times they have, you know, the
technical managers are like myself where I call myself sort
of like a honey bee. My job is just sort of go visit
all these flowers. That spread pollen around, you
(26:04):
know, what's the good thing thatwe're seeing every other place
and that's part of it, you know?It is We have a broader view
that we could come back and bring and share with our
customers. But, you know, so they get value
out of their investment but alsothat they can then give us
feedback back to, how do we makethis better?
It would be 20% better if we could do this this way or faster
(26:26):
or something like that. So that's, you know, it's the
two-way communication between Taney, mm, and our customers,
that is really the value that, you know, that's what I really
loved about it. When I looked at ATM was that
sort of Engagement that they Have is really great.
Well, gentlemen, I have to say, I am more informed now that I
was before and just to recap, this transformational journey,
(26:50):
especially in the area of it across school systems.
It's not just a single Dimension.
We've talked about the cyber security and and protections
that are there. We've talked about automation
the importance of professional development and learning talked
about the benefit of collaboration.
Break sharing all of that known information to make your schools
(27:13):
safer and more secure and provide those great learning
environments for our students. Our most precious assets are
children and Doug give any finalwords for us.
Thanks James. Thanks, Henry for being one, a
customer, but joining us today telling your story.
You're an example of transformational leadership, for
(27:34):
sure. Just think differently, don't be
afraid. To get out my advice to
everybody, I say, is what would you look like in three years?
What do you envision life to be in three years?
Is that the same as it is today?Or is it with new tools or is it
just simply, hey, the business is run completely different.
And that's sort of what Henry did we can do this better.
(27:57):
There's a new way to do it. So don't be afraid to think
differently. All right, then I guess the last
point is be future-ready always be mindful of what is coming and
whatever you're anticipating? Probably it'll be worse.
That's probably true. Yes.
All right. Well again, thank you both so so
much. It's been my pleasure and my
(28:18):
honor to have you here today andon behalf of Ed circuit and
kosan. Thank you both so much on behalf
of the leadership team at kosan.Thank you for listening to this
episode of the coast and podcastto Other podcasts in the series
visit kosan dot org or Ed circuit.com for complete lineup
of engaging technology topics. Ed circuit empowers.
(28:40):
The voices of Education with hundreds of trusted contributors
changemakers and Industry leading education, innovators.
Other podcasts in the series visit kosan dot org or Ed
circuit.com for complete lineup of engaging technology topics.
Ed circuit empowers. The voices of Education with
hundreds of trusted contributorschangemakers and Industry
leading education, innovators.
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