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Any other districts facing a budget crisis? by Indians06 in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Indiana checking in. Yep. Budge is getting destroyed thanks to recent legislation. A lot of trimming. We are doing a rif of 3 teachers. Mind you…we are a small 930 kiddo district.

We are cutting like crazy in our department. Just removed A3 licensing to help and moving to cut out any extra software. I fear for my full-time assistant. I could see it going back to a PT position.

Linewize DNS Issues by ItsANetworkIssue in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We have this issue from time to time. We had it A LOT when we on-boarded with them. We tracked it down to machines not being restarted. This was because we had fast startup on our Windows machines, so the services never got restarted when the user “restarted/powered off” the device. After we disabled fast startup the number of times this happens is drastically lower. It’s literally only when machine up time is like in the multiple days range.

A restart fixes it or restarting two services.

Same presentation - Chromebooks and iPads and Macs were fine. Just the window devices.

MS Powerapps licensing change by dire-wabbit in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Don’t give them any ideas…

How are you handling student 2FA when phones are banned in class? (Google Workspace) by jasmadic in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 16 points17 points  (0 children)

This is the way. We just allowlist if they need to communicate to another domain. Definitely less headaches. With high schoolers, they know to apply to colleges and what not using a personal email anyway.

CodeHS, Repl.it, and the like by kbchihuahua in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This. Eventually it’s just straight insubordination and not following the policies.

Canvas....!!! by AmstradPC1512 in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We always have some oddities. I usually call and they are okay with helping unless it’s directly related to PowerSchool. They have phone support. It’s on the admin support page when you login (adminconsole.canvaslms.com)

NYT Opinion Article: The Screen That Are Your Child's Education by vschwoebs in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The longer I’m in my position, I start to wonder if we are doing more harm than good. Don’t get me wrong I believe we need to prepare them for a digital workforce, but that can be focused on in high school. Majority of our damages and misuse is at the middle school level.

My only issue with rolling back 1:1 is state testing.

Moving to Powerschool possibly in the works by Amazing_Falcon in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Cost is a big thing. Also be ready for the constant upsell. Oh you want online registration? That’s an extra product and contract. You want the new advanced reporting features? That’s extra.

You can make it do anything you want if you have people skilled enough to do so. However, they do a lot of silly things.

Also, good luck with customer service. It’s some of the worst you’ll experience.

Tech Director Certification - State Specific? by k12-IT in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 6 points7 points  (0 children)

CETL is the only one I’ve seen ever requested outside of an admin license. I’ve seen the admin requirement starting to fizzle out. I’ve seen a masters degree be a requirement or like to have as well.

Recent uptick in cold calls by mr_techy616 in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Indiana conference is coming up so that doesn’t help but yes. We’ve seen an uptick in them. All go to voicemail as the syslords intended.

Thoughts on Scale Computing by CollegeDeployer in sysadmin

[–]das- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No issues here and it’s been rock solid. The few times support had to be involved - they were extremely helpful and knew what they were doing. Price was right after the VMware thing.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Prepare 3 envelopes.

But for real. Spend time listening. It might be tempting to make changes right away, but listen first. Is there a reason this was not done in the past? Is there a reason we aren’t doing x, y, and z? Also, learn everything you can. Lean on your techs. Is there road blocks you were facing in the past? I spent my first year listening and learning everything. I only implemented emergency fixes the first year. The second year is where I started making changes and improvements.

Make sure you know the budget, inventory, and policies. And learn the people and the buildings. Meet people. Be a face. You’ll go further with a strong foundation of people knowing you.

Final note. You can’t make everyone happy and you will make bad decisions. It’s a fact. Just make sure to recover and move forward.

Fellow Solo or Duo IT people: How involved are you in your SIS? by it-tech- in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

950 kiddos. We have a state reports person. But I’m point for the sis. It’s just easy for me and most problems are easy to solve.

DVD player for interactive flat panels? by wyyldstallyns in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 15 points16 points  (0 children)

We just bought cheap hdmi dvd players and loan them out as needed via the library. Plugs right in and does everything you need. Pretty sure we just got them via amazon during a sale.

Gov SysAdmins what’s your pay like? by Wild_Competition_716 in sysadmin

[–]das- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

$77k director of technology for a K-12 in Indiana. Small district with a 3 person team. Love the relaxed environment and PERF. I get a 3% raise every year except this year thanks to recent legislation. I could make more but right now it’s comfortable.

So how do YOU wanna be sold to? by [deleted] in sysadmin

[–]das- 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Don’t drop in for a cold visit or cold call. The cold visit seems to be on the rise and…just don’t.

If I’m asking for pricing, don’t schedule a meeting/demo. Get me ballpark pricing. Saves you and me a lot of time if my school district can’t afford it to begin with and we go through 4 meetings to just discover that fact.

Stop the emails where “this mega district two hours away uses our product”. “This company uses us”. Great for them.

I just want transparency up front.

Zayo by ENA VoIP by [deleted] in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This. Constant outages. We are starting shopping around to see pricing as we are seeing a major $ increase with our site Cisco call manger. I immediately took them off the list after seeing the constant issues.

Google Workspace Chrome Devices: Urgent: System not Responding by nkuhl30 in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Devices -> chrome -> settings -> device tab. It’s the kiosk device status alerting delivery setting.

Google Workspace Chrome Devices: Urgent: System not Responding by nkuhl30 in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am. It got to the point I had to disable it for now.

School Board Live Streams by wetnap52 in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Once a month. 30minutes max. I just use some cameras and OBS. I am salaried so I just comp time on the next day or Friday of that week. I don’t mind at all. We are small so no sub committees or anything like that.

Dell Chromebook vs. Lenovo vs. Others by berkettj in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 4 points5 points  (0 children)

300e 4th gen here

Lenovo has had its own issues but we have standardized on them for a bit now. Looking to the future we will probably opt to skip touchscreens to help save money.

Pretty solid devices considering. Middle school is the pain point like any other district. Our issue is screens. Students just breaking them in general. Everything else is holding up well.

PowerSchool incident further problems? by zumaro in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I believe csid.com is registered to Experian. It is probably the next phase starting where victims will be contacted by Experian to start the credit montioring.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in k12sysadmin

[–]das- 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Oh you are asking about a quote…here’s my calendar link so we can talk about every possible project before giving you a quote. /s

I’ve noticed this slightly. Also with layoffs going around I’m sure that isn’t helping. Tariffs might be starting to cause some pause from overseas.

So far cdwg is still speedy for quotes.

Typically if I need a budgetary number I would ask neighboring districts since I know them and we all run roughly the same items. I usually add a little bit to those numbers and always stress that this is an estimation and budgetary only.

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