Creating a Full-Time Sysadmin Position at a School?

Old_Mountain_Man asks: "I have been working at a K-8 school for the last two school years, as a volunteer through an Americorps program called the Montana Technology Corps. In theory, I am here to teach teachers and students how to use technology, but because of the need and my ability to do so, I have become an unofficial Systems Administrator. We also have a contracted Systems Admin that comes in once a week, and works 30 hours or so a month. After this year, the Tech Corps position will no longer be available to the school, so something needs to be done to keep the IT systems of the school functioning. I am going to propose to the school board that they create an official, full time systems administrator position, and to hire me for that job. Are there others out there that got their jobs similarly? How do you convince a board that they need to start budgeting for this? They have obviously taken the plunge to getting this technology in the school, so how do I convince them that they need somebody here to maintain it?" "We have about 375 students, and probably 40 or so staff that use the computers. We have a lab of 25 machines, workstations in each classroom, a laptop cart, four smart-boards, six networked printers, and six servers hosting files, applications, Exchange and an Isaserver. In all, this is about 170 machines that need to be taken care of. There's no way the contracted systems admin could keep up with this, while working only 30 hours a month, so I feel the school needs somebody here full time.

What I am looking for is specific information regarding how many IT support people are needed for this kind of setup. I wonder if there are papers/reports that break down how much support time is needed for different systems that I could take to the school board.

In addition any advice on how to shape my presentation to the board would be useful."

Comments

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[Anonymous Coward]

For a few weeks... If they need a systems administrator, they should realize it pretty quickly.

Take on more schools

[eln]

That's a fairly small school. They already have a roving sysadmin, which seems like the right approach for a budget-strapped district with such a small number of machines per school. If the roving sysadmin is not able to handle the load, propose that they hire a second roving sysadmin for the district. I don't think you'll get very far offering to work full time as a sysadmin for just one small school.

Be prepared for a pay cut...

[HTMLSpinnr]

If you're working in a corporate environment, most schools and gov't institutions tend to pay less, and on a sliding scale that typically has a cap.

While you're creating the position from scatch, they may reference other districts or institutions to determine what they should budget. There's also the risk if you asking too much and it just not being available.

At any rate - it may require some sink or swim experience for them before they truly realize the need if it's like any other bureaucracy. Unless the powers that be are already somewhat technology savvy, they'll likely fail to see this with any but the best prepared amount of discussion. Inclusion of facts and costs for each decision branch would likely be very helpful.

Some advice from the experienced

[JordanL]

I work in a large school district. Large enough that it has a central IT department, (which is where I work).

The closest position here to what your describing is what we call a "Site Technology Coordinator", who we have at most high schools and middle school that deal with most of the stuff our actual sys admins don't have time to deal with. (We moved the printer without telling the WAN team and now we can't print?)

First, for a school of around 400 or so, you shouldn't need more than one full time technology assitant, if you have the tools to properly manage the systems. We use ZENworks, which obviously is overkill for such a small scope, (we have 50,000 students we service though).

Our largest school has about 2,000 students and about 150-175 staff, and we still only have one full time STC. We do however have area techs as well.

For your situation, the best way to convince a board is comparative analysis. See how other school districts or other schools fare, and what they do. Like us for instance. Your needed staff will probably total one full time Admin, and at least one part-time tech, (such as a TOSA [Teacher on Special Assignment], or teacher with extra responsibilities).

If you need more info, e-mail me.

Explain to them exactly what they really have now.

[ReverendLoki]

Seems to me one of the best things you can do is explain exactly how much technical support they have right now. List out all of the duties you are performing and give ballparks for how many hours you spend on each any given week or month. List separately what the traveling SysAdmin's duties are, and hours devoted to each. For good measure, give a couple of common emergency scenarios, and what it would take to dig out from under them. Remind them that they soon won't have anyone doing your set of tasks. You're also going to have to give an idea how much someone filling that job can expect to ask for compensation, of course keeping in mind that there is a salary gap between the academic and the corporate world. Still, quote both ranges.

Having never made a presentation like this to a school board, I can't give you much advice as far as format goes, I'm afraid. But as far as content goes, it sounds like you've got a good start on it already. Hopefully you'll at least convince them to increase their staff, if not create a full time position. Maybe consider alternative setups - can they get by with a part time SysAdmin, and a full time Asst. Sysadmin, or Operator type position at lower pay?

Good luck with your endeavors...

Tech Staffing in Michigan

[Anonymous Coward]

I work as the Computer Tech for a school district in South-East Michigan. We currently have about 1.0 FTE for each 180 computers but we are laying off people for next year. In trying to investigate what other districts are doing it is clear the choice is based on what they can afford - not what would be useful or ideal.

A couple notes
-Most technology plan resources recommend 1 FTE for every 100-200 computers, or 1 FTE for every 300-500 closely managed computers (Thin clients for instance)

-There are clear trade-offs in terms of response time and tech support. Document the current repair turnaround time, and number of failures and compare it to what would be expected with different levels of staffing. Let the elected school board decide if it is worth taking funding from teachers to get computers fixed faster

-It is possible to survive with much less support if you are REALLY WILLING as a district to reduce the flexibility of computer us (for instance no support for use other than office or a browser, no non-district software installed, using things like deep-freeze, etc

Based on my experience

[kestasjk]

If my high school sys admin was a benchmark for success you should try to get in the way of education as much as possible. If someone is programming in Brainfuck go ahead and remove the scripts and lock their account for a week even though you only saw the naughty word because you were searching for it.

The moment anyone does something that violates the terms of use (even something completely petty that doesn't affect anyone) find out which class and person is doing it, sprint to the class, sneak in quietly (wearing camouflage gear), tip-toe behind the person offending the petty rule, and scream in their ear while they're doing whatever it is they shouldn't.
Bonus points if you put your hand on their shoulder, and they turn around and see you glaring into their eyes with disgust just as you start to scream at them.

If you can demonstrate these skills to the board you're in; technical abilities don't matter in my experience.

Wrong approach

[Spazmania]

How do you convince a board that they need to start budgeting for this?

You don't. You watch the tapes of the old board meetings, figure out which board member is most likely to have a clue what you're talking about and then you convince her directly. Bringing along the rest of the board is then her game in which you're just a player.

Use your own data to support your claim

[davidwr]

Your own data is far more valuable than anything any of us can give you.

Take the part-time guy to lunch and find out exactly what he does and how long it takes him to do it.

Add the hours you put in.

Then make adjustments for the efficiency of having one person do the whole job.

This gives you a starting point.

If that's not enough for a 40-hour-week job, make adjustments for tasks that are currently done by teachers that can be offloaded to you, as well as tasks that are not getting done that will benefit the teachers and students "if only we had the manpower."

Finally, to short-circuit the question of "can we do any of this with volunteer labor," make a realistic assessment of how much work volunteers could do, and add in the cost of training and coordinating the volunteers.

One more thing to consider:
As a full-time sysadmin, you can also run a serious, skill-building high-school "computer club" and if you have the credentials, teach certification classes to high school students after school or in the evenings. Parents love this.

Best of luck.

By the way, the part-time guy might want the job you are trying to create, and the school board might just hire him for the position. If you two put your heads together and he gives you a good reference, maybe his other clients will hire you.