Submission + - Create a systems admin job at my school?
Old_Mountain_Man writes: "I have been working at a K-8 school for the last two school years as a volunteer through an Americorps program called the Montana Technology Corps. In theory, I am here to teach teachers and students how to use technology, but because of the need and my ability to do so, I have become an unofficial Systems Administrator. We also have a contracted Systems Admin that comes in once a week, and works 30 hours or so a month. After this year, the Tech Corps position will no longer be available to the school, so something needs to be done to keep the IT systems of the school functioning. I am going to propose to the school board that they create an official, full time systems administrator position, and, of course, to hire me for that job. We have about 375 students, and probably 40 or so staff that use the computers. We have a lab of 25 machines, workstations in each classroom, a laptop cart, four smartboards and six networked printers and six servers hosting files, applications, Exchange and an Isaserver. In all, about 170 machines that need taken care of. (All Windows) There's no way the contracted systems admin could keep up working only 30 hours a month, so I feel the school needs somebody here full time.
What I am looking for is specific information regarding how many IT support people are needed for this kind of setup. I wonder if there are papers/reports that break down how much support time is needed for different systems that I could take to the school board.
In addition any advice on how to shape my presentation to the board would be useful. Are there others out there that got their jobs similarly? How do you convince a board that they need to start budgeting for this? They have obviously taken the plunge to getting this technology in the school, how do I convince them that they need somebody here to maintain it?"
