Ask Slashdot: Best Practices For Maintaining IT Policy In K-12 Public Education?

First time accepted submitter El Fantasmo writes "I work in public education, K-12, for a small, economically shaky, low performing school district. What are some good or effective tactics for getting budget controllers to stop bypassing the IT boss/department? We sometimes we end up with LOW end MS Win 7 Home laptops, that basically can't get on our network (internet only) or be managed. The purchaser refuses to return them for proper setups. Unfortunately, IT is currently under the 'asst. superintendent of curriculum and instruction,' who has no useful understanding of maintaining and acquiring IT resources and lets others make poor IT purchasing decisions, by bypassing the IT department, and dips into IT funds when their pet project budgets run low. How can this be reversed when you get commands like 'make it work' and the budget is effectively $0?"

Comments

Re:Use fear.

[decipher_saint]

Wow, literally, "Fear will keep the local systems in line"

I fear for when your IT department becomes fully operational.

You don't.

[idontgno]

If it's literally as bad as you describe, your intended function is to fail as spectacularly as possible in order to be the fall guy. You can't gather meaningful evidence to convince or refute the decision-makers, and no one is going to believe you when you claim you're being asked to do the impossible by the unreasonable.

Leave. The only reason they want you there is that they want you on the bridge when the ship runs aground.

When failure's not an options (because it's mandatory), you're under no obligation to remain involved with that fiasco, and short of blackmail-level evidence, you have no way to change course anyway.

Re:You don't.

[grasshoppa]

I second the "Leave" recommendation. You aren't going to change minds. You can dig in your heals and tell them "No, this will not work", and they may listen to you...but just as likely they'll find someone who they can bully around. More likely really.

Time to jump ship and let them fail on their own.

Re:You don't.

[forkfail]

Also concur. Get out before they drag you down with them, and ruin your chances for another gig.

Fiscal policy?

[philip.paradis]

dips into IT funds when their pet project budgets run low

Given the fact that you work in the public sector, you may wish to consider obtaining anything and everything available on budgetary policy for your school district, county, state, etc. It may turn out that what you're observing on the fiscal side of things actually represents clear misappropriation of funds. If that's the case, bringing it to the attention of people three or four levels up in the chain of command may have an interesting effect, and perhaps a detailed letter to a state representative would bring uncomfortable attention to those mismanaging the funds.

You are asking the wrong crowd

[ZeroPly]

This is a management/politics question. Gaining resources for your own department is what a good manager or VP does every day. IT people are fundamentally bad at this because they give answers that are technical and correct, yet are irrelevant in a financial or political context. While fighting the good fight, terms like "PCI", "HIPAA", and "BSA" will help you much more than "IPSEC" or "DNS".

Learn political skills, work on establishing trust relationships with the other players rather than just being a technical grunt, and remember that if you're not at the table, you're on the menu.

Re:I work for a public school district

[ghbpiper]

I do as well. We've been able to save TONS by purchasing off-lease systems at 10 cents on the dollar WITH 3 year warranties. The bigger issue is that the wrong person is selecting and specifying technology purchases. Talk to the Supt or CBO. And yes try to make them look good, if you can. All computer, networking, AND software purchase should have to pass through the IT dept for evaluation. To not do so is foolish at best.