Returning Staff

As happens every year, we need to give staff laptops a little bit of TLC in the spring. Unlike other years, this year, we’d like to try to take care of things before you leave for the summer and do it in such a way that you won’t be without your laptop for more than a day (and in many cases, only a part of a day).  Look for a message in your building conference from Jordan Salus with more information.

Our goal is to process and return your laptop to you in less than one day.  The only exceptions will be if we find a problem that can’t be addressed that quickly or if you have a large amount of data (photos, movies or music) that needs to be dealt with.

Note: If you cannot be without your computer for even part of a day between now and the end of the school year, that’s OK.  You can arrange to drop it off in the Tech Office no later than Friday, June 11, and we’ll process it and return it to you as soon as possible.

Also this year, we are replacing the oldest of our staff MacBooks with new MacBooks. If you are in line for one of these replacements, we will let you know. (In case you’re interested, we’ll be using the reclaimed MacBooks to fill in laptop carts for student use.)

To summarize, you have two options:

1. If you can be without your laptop for a few hours on a day between now and the end of the year, watch for an announcement in the next couple of days and we’ll take care of you.
2. If you cannot be without your laptop between now and the end of the year, please call Jody (5690) to schedule a time to drop it in the Tech Office on or after the last day of school, but no later than Friday, June 11.

Important! Make sure you have a good back up of your Movies, Music, and Photos, since those things are not included in the syncing process and so are not backed up on our servers. We do our best to prevent data loss, but a hard drive can fail at any time, so please be prepared!

If you are not returning next year

If you are not returning for the 2010/2011 school year, please return your laptop, power supply and video dongle (if you have one) to your building principal when you check out.

If you need help copying personal files off your computer, please submit a Help Desk ticket this week!

If you have any questions about the process, don’t hesitate to call 5690.

Did you know:

The Tech Department supports more than 1,500 distinct technology-related assets deployed in our schools? That includes everything from TVs and VCRs to digital cameras to document cameras to laptop computers to interactive whiteboards.

The Tech Department supports more than 400 desktop computers and dozens of servers.

The Tech Department supports more than 500 laptop computers, on carts for student use or in the hands of teachers, administrators, and other staff.

The Tech Deptartment maintains the wired and wireless networks that connect all these computers to each other and the Internet.

The Tech Department supports dozens and dozens of software titles installed on all of those computers.

The Tech Department supports user accounts on the network and in FirstClass for almost all of our approximately 2,000 students and approximately 300 adults.

The Tech Department supports systems for managing student information, student schedules, grades, report cards, payroll, purchasing, food service, professional development, student testing, on-line learning, web publishing, voice mail, e-mail, data backup, fee processing, emergency parent notifications, on-online collaboration, spam and web filtering, and network security.

District staff submit between 300 and 700 help tickets per month. And that doesn’t include the dozen or more direct phone calls to the Tech Office on a typical day.

The Tech Department answers calls from parents regarding student registration, student and parent passwords, lunch payments and other general requests that don’t fall anywhere else.

And all that while continuing to look ahead for new tools to support the work of every person associated with District 102.

The District Technology Department is Susan Byrne, Jody Salus, Jordan Salus, Mike Szpisjak, Evan Tiberi, Cari Zore, and Tom Donovan, with front-line help from the librarians, building technology teachers and aides, who I won’t list by name, for fear of leaving someone out.