To: Michael Green
From: Steve Rippl
Date: June 6, 2024
RE: Tech Department Report
The biggest news in the department is the new hire of a Tech I position that hopefully you will soon see on the board agenda. Our longest-serving team member, James Doty (almost 27 years with the District), will be retiring later in the Fall, so we have hired now to give us the extra support over the summer that we always need and then to have a brief overlap transition. We had a strong interest in the position, perhaps a sign of the softening tech sector, but it meant we had a good pool of candidates to choose from. We believe we’ve selected a great fit for our department and the district. It really takes at least a year for someone to wrap themselves around all the facets of tech within our district, but I look forward to beginning that process with our new employee.
From a tech perspective, State testing went very smoothly. The middle school testing all of its 700+ students at once did have me holding my breath a little, but there were no significant problems. It’s a testament both to the maturity of the testing platform the State is using, and the confidence and experience our staff now have with it all. Hopefully our students felt as comfortable and were able to demonstrate what they knew successfully.
Finally, we’re busy making our summer plans. We have new 5th grade Chromebooks coming in. 8th graders will use their existing ones in high school, but we will collect them to ensure they are all in working order before they start as Freshmen. We’ll be updating all staff Windows computers to version 11 (as Windows 10 reaches “end of life” this October), and finishing up some network and server upgrades we’ve not had the opportunity to complete yet (enough time with school not running!) We’ll be building out the student “Check-In/Check-out” process in Sips whereby staff can monitor students daily around specified goals (usually behavior oriented), and completing the K12 referral process. We’re also integrating WCC registration and billing into our website. A busy summer as always!