Several weeks ago, we introduced you to Chris Higle, the chief technology officer at Ceres Unified School District in California. He shared with us why he feels it’s necessary as a leader in K12 technology to roll up your sleeves and simply do the work, even if it’s hard. More importantly, he advised other leaders not to wait around for the call. Let your teachers know you’re there for them and check in regularly.
But that was just a glimpse into some of his priorities for him and his staff. One of his primary goals is to drive transformation in the system, starting with the IT department.
“We’re working on all of the procedural and organizational change stuff that we believe will make a big impact and a big splash in our systems,” Higle says.
But in order to begin driving this momentum, it required them to take a step back and evaluate what they were doing.
“We actually had a peer review done of our technology operations to gather feedback on what was working well, what could use improvement,” he says. “That was really valuable and a bit humbling. We found that we had a lot of procedures of things, but our documentation was lacking.”
Like most school districts across the country, Higle has dealt with a lot of turnover in the last few years. And when people leave, vital knowledge also vanishes. Thus, documenting everything and staying up to date is crucial.
“We really had to evaluate the services we’re providing, our processes and procedures and figuring out what we need to do to make things run more efficiently,” he says.
But most importantly, this review process helped them to understand how the IT department can provide the best experience for their students and staff.
“We focused on just being efficient and effective and implementing frameworks like ITSM (IT Service Management) and organization structure changes to support this work,” he says.
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Then they began the process of making structural changes. Higle reorganized his teams and put in place this concept of operational focus teams, or OFTS for short.
“We’re grouping individuals together, like our systems people, our data people, and our support people and have those teams be more cohesive and work with each other to produce the work or solve challenges that come up,” he explains. “Also, to reinforce that documentation so that there are processes that are developed for the work that they do. You get more consistency.”
This initiative is driving much of their work, he explains. Better yet, he believes it’s helped to improve morale throughout the entire department.
“We definitely had a morale dip coming out of the pandemic,” he says. “We feel like this is also helping broaden the skill level of our team because you have a lot more crossover between job areas, and there’s a lot of collaboration and sharing of the work.”
Earning a seat at the table as a CTO
Since the pandemic, K12 technology leaders, including Higle, have witnessed a profound shift in their responsibilities and their overall importance in their district. Now more than ever, IT leaders are being included in district-level conversations.
“I’m definitely starting to see a shift out there in organizations and in K12,” he says. “I think that’s a good thing. We need to be seen as strategic partners, not just the fix it people that solve problems.”
Make no mistake, Higle’s job was already complex before the pandemic. But COVID helped organizations to realize just how important technology infrastructure and the folks providing that service are.
“When you have a shift overnight to virtual learning, you realize, ‘Wow. Those IT people are really important,'” he says. “I’m just thankful we already had a lot of good things in place. We were in a good position to build and improve on what we were doing.”
But, of course, the complexities of the job have certainly grown, he says. He mentions that cybersecurity is top of mind for every CTO in education.
“I think that’s what keeps us up at night at times,” he says. “It’s one of those things that we just have to continually adapt and put a lot of effort into.”
At the end of the day, Higle’s philosophy and advice for other leaders in his role is to be proactive and invite yourself to the table. Don’t make excuses.
“I think sometimes IT leaders get very frustrated and say, ‘They never came to talk to us.’ You can’t wait for them to come to you,” he says. “Invite yourself and just come to the table and say, ‘Hey, I can help. I can be a partner.'”
