Solutions
The Board of Education decided to seek bids from technology partners to assist the district with this assessment. While pricing was a focus area, the Board of Education was also looking for partners with experience in helping academic organizations with assessing technology infrastructures, planning, budgeting, grants, and general technology governance and leadership specifically focused in K12 public education. Ultimately, the Board chose Weidenhammer to help them execute the assessment.
The Weidenhammer team begins with an assessment of the infrastructure. This includes a technical and security vulnerability review. During the assessment we also engage in 1-on-1 conversations with district staff to gain an understanding of how they perceive the current state of technology within the district – what works, what doesn’t, and what would you want to be done differently? We gather this information to ensure that the user community, in the case the faculty and students, are heard. We want to be sure the district and district’s technology team understand the needs, wants, successes, and failures currently experienced on campus. The IT team, administrators, and other district leaders are also interviewed to gather similar information.
All of the strategic and technical information is then compiled and provided as part of our assessment findings.
The result of our assessment was a comprehensive plan that included infrastructure investments, staff training, and other similar recommendations. We provide this roadmap, along with associated estimated budgets in a multi-year and with associated priority. The final result is that regardless of the technology platforms or infrastructure, the technology must be viewed as a tool to deliver instruction to our students. These tools will be vital to helping our teachers shape the academic futures of our students for many years to come.