How many IT (Tech support) does your district have.

Hi there! I am wondering what other districts have for Techs and Technology related personnel. To put it into perspective, it would be nice to know how many Computers (Break down of Windows/Mac's would help),number of Servers would help too. How many Interactive White Boards you have (Smart Board, Promethean, etc, number of iPods, iPads, overhead projectors (in addition to the ones used for IWB) and any other technology related devices that your techs need to support. Lastly the numbers of staff and students would help.

The district that I work for has about 1200 computers, 1000 PC's (~200 laptops, 800 desktops) and about 200 Macs (150 desktops, 50 laptops). We have about a 100 iPads, 50+ipods, approximately 125 SmartBoards and an additional 25 or so Video projectors. We have 7 Novell/OES Servers (physical), and right around 18 Windows servers (4 physical rest VM)(no AD). 4 ESX/ESXi servers, 1-SAN. Our district consists of 7 schools and a total of 11 buildings. Approximately 280 staff and 1800 students. We have 3 Technicians and 3 "Technology Integration Specialists" (technology coaches or equivalent).

Also any discussion on how you feel the number of IT staff should be determined. Should number of students/staff be the determining factor? Or should the amount of technology that needs to be supported be the most important factor?

My personal view on it, is that the technology that needs to be supported is the main factor in the equation. Staffing and student levels needs to be taken into account, but should not be the determining factor. A large district with very little technology would require a smaller IT staff, than a much small district that had a lot of technology. I also am a firm believer that you can reduce the number of IT staff, be devoting more resources into staff development. The more the end user knows how to do, the less people you will need to do things for the user.

Any thoughts on any of this?

Thanks!

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Thomas on January 7, 2011 at 2:10am

Hello,

Previously, sorry for my bad english ...

I'm IT manager (and new to this website) at an international school in Paris (2700 students, 300 employees).

We are now 2 people (a technician and myself) full-time and a technician part-time learning.

We are about 5 sites in Paris and we have approximately:

12 servers (Mac / Linux / Windows)
50 Mac for teachers departments (Connected to an OD)
60 Mac for administrative staff
15 PCs (Windows) for administrative staff
35 PCs (Windows) for students
6 Classmobiles from 20 MacBook for science students and primary school
12 Mac in labs (with screen and video projector)
20 PCs portables (windows) to loan for teachers
70 printers
80 classrooms with video projector
4 interactive whiteboard

We handle also of a dozen website, 350 email accounts for the employees, 9000 email accounts for students and alumni, 300 OpenDirectory accounts, users support, etc. ...

Next year we plan to equip all our classrooms (80) with a computer (probably mac).

I don't know at all how it's going to happen with the teachers, but it will require computers to be "always" operational (of course).

My question is, is that at 2.5 people enough?

Can you tell me about your experiences on such a development?

Thank's a lot !

Thomas

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Irishjedi on January 9, 2011 at 8:23am

Reading about all the technology other posters have my district is way behind the eight ball here in Massachusetts. We have about 13,000 students, 25 schools, and 1000 teachers. As far as technology each school has a server and some classes have Smartboards(not mine though). We are all PC and not every school has a lab, just a few computers in the class. It is pretty sad. The computers in the lab at my school are 6 years old. However, there are new computers that have been sitting in boxes since the summer. Go figure.

There are 4 technicians and 1 Network Administrator to take care of all the schools. We don't use Ipads, Touches, or anything of the sort. We are not allowed to access blogs, wikis, or many other Web 2.0 sites. We are ass backwards.

This will make you laugh. I am doing an action research project for my admin license about the use of Web 2.0 tools in writing. I wanted to use blogs to have the kids collaborate on their writings. One of the upper administrators said that I can't use blogs and asked if there is anything else I would consider doing my action research on. No there is not anything else!! Can you believe that? Anyways, I am finding other Web 2.0 tools to use. OK, you can stop laughing now.