[geeks] Thoughts on IT work in public schools?

[Rjtoegel]

Being in the classroom for almost 33 years....well...be prepared to implement
some of worse, user unfriendly software that the cheapest money can buy,  deal
with some of the most lost users imaginable (not necessarily the students) and
make the whole mess work.  You'll be expected to be on call 24-7 even on days
off.  And there is always someone who knows it better even when they don't.
I work for a big urban district and I've talked to some lower level IT people
and one of my fellow teacher's husband is one of the top IT people in my
district.  It's amazing how many butts he saved over the years and not gotten
one bit of thanks.  Now that online testing is here (the PARCC) things are
gonna get busy. ;)

Bob

On Apr 16, 2014, at 11:14, Nathan Raymond <nraymond at gmail.com> wrote:

> Anyone with any experience working IT in public education?  I'm
> contemplating it as a future career move, and I'd love to know more from
> people's first-hand experiences.  This job would be managing the
> infrastructure to four grammar/middle schools and a high school.
>
> While I've done work in private education (my first paid job was IT work
> for the prep school I went to many moons ago, and I did VAX and UNIX admin
> work on the side during my computer science undergrad years, and I've done
> some IT consulting for a few private schools recently), I have not dealt
> first hand with a public school (and never went to one, either).  I'd
> expect there to be a lot of politics, and potential budget issues.  I know
> they tend to have unions as well.  Anything else I should be aware of, or
> to look for?
>
> - Nate
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