To: Michael Green
From: Steve Rippl
Date: December 9, 2021
RE: Tech Department Report
The biggest news in our department this month is our new hire, Isaac Brill. He’s a recent graduate from the Information Technology and Communication Systems program at Perry Technical Institute. He’s an enthusiastic young man with a passion for education and technology, so we think he’ll be a good fit here in our District. He has a lot to learn in terms of the specifics of how we run and manage our systems here, but that process is already underway here in the office. He’ll also be shadowing team members as they get out into the buildings so he can become familiar with our staff and facilities. It’s been interesting for me to reflect on Finnegan’s progress at this point. He started in a similar place back in June and now he’s working independently, understands a lot of what goes on here, and is showing Isacc around. While he still has more to learn as well, he’s making great progress.
Apart from that things have been very steady, the usual work of supporting our staff and ensuring the tech wheels are turning is always the primary priority. Some of our progress in terms of backend systems has slowed somewhat due to our personnel changes, but that’s picking up again now. One example is our transition from a PRI phone system connection (old-school dedicated copper lines) to a SIP trunk connection (over the internet and our existing modern fiber connection). Investments in copper networks have dried up and so reliability is becoming an issue, and there are cost savings to be had in transition as well. Selecting a vendor has been a slow process as other priorities have kept getting in the way, but I think we are close to making this happen.