Olathe Faculty District CTO Josh Umphrey understands firsthand the problem of aligning IT objectives with classroom wants. Earlier than taking the expertise helm at Kansas’s second-largest college district, Umphrey was a historical past trainer, coach and assistant principal at Olathe West Excessive Faculty. That frontline expertise informs how he approaches pupil privateness and community safety.
InformationWeek just lately caught up with the previous assistant principal turned CTO to debate how widespread IT challenges, significantly round AI and cybersecurity, play out in another way in Okay-12 training. Umphrey defined that within the Olathe Faculty District, expertise is seen as an “engagement software to studying” that ought to function a “useful resource” however not a “crutch” to college students.
The overarching problem for Umphrey and the district’s IT group is managing the pace at which expertise is deployed throughout the district. For instance, it is not at all times possible for the IT group to deploy bleeding-edge expertise as shortly as lecturers would really like.
As a former trainer, Umphrey totally understands that need, however he additionally is aware of that faculty districts face privateness, compliance and safety obligations that require a deliberate method.
Navigating app overload and strict knowledge compliance
Managing a large software program setting with a lean employees is a continuing battle for the district, Umphrey stated.
“We help round 2,400 totally different apps throughout the district and making certain that every one of them work is a close to impossibility.”
Guaranteeing compliance with federal rules — together with the Youngster On-line Safety Act (COPA), Household Academic Rights and Privateness Act (FERPA) and HIPAA legal guidelines — additional complicates the trouble to handle so many purposes, he added.
One other problem is that the Olathe District has a devoted IT group of solely about 35 people serving 51 colleges.
“On prime of that, we’ve about 30,000 children in our district, all of whom are actively making an attempt to bypass the whole lot,” Umphrey stated.
Establishing pupil privateness guardrails
Defending pupil knowledge and coaching lecturers on the risk panorama are among the many district’s prime safety priorities, Umphrey stated. Whereas a trainer would possibly need to use a brand new AI expertise straight away, it is vital to contemplate the safety of pupil info and meet district pointers earlier than deploying new expertise, he stated.
The district’s use of AI instruments was “type of open at the start, after which we dialed it again. Now we’re locked into just some that we all know have the precise guardrails in place to not prepare anyone outdoors, after which we’ve very particular use circumstances,” Umphrey stated. Among the many Olathe District’s permitted inner AI applied sciences are MagicSchool and CoPilot — a choose group even have entry to Gemini to find out whether or not the district ought to develop entry to extra AI fashions.
“We need to get it proper,” Umphrey stated concerning the district’s method to AI. Olathe Faculty District is collaborating with accomplice college districts to deploy AI “successfully, defend children, and guarantee that we’re discovering the precise methods to coach lecturers.”
Umphrey defined that the district’s AI applied sciences run inside the inner community to stop non-public pupil info from being shared publicly. AI is not the one potential risk to distributing non-public pupil knowledge; human error presents one other privateness problem. If a employees member makes an attempt to share pupil info through their college’s e-mail deal with, the safety platform will cease it and the IT group will obtain an alert, he added. “5 years in the past I noticed that occur a handful instances, however now our coaching is actually paying off, and we’re simply not seeing it as a lot,” Umphrey stated.
On account of coaching and relationship-building, Umphrey stated he’s happy that lecturers are comfy approaching him with questions on moral AI utilization, which is able to cut back the chance that pupil info is uploaded to exterior AI instruments, for instance.
For Umphrey, it is essential that lecturers and employees know that they’ll method him immediately with expertise questions or safety considerations.
“It at all times begins with relationships. It’s a must to be a face, not only a title on an e-mail. It’s a must to be somebody that they know and belief. I work onerous to guarantee that the principals in each single constructing know who I’m, and I’ve a relationship with them. I do know that what issues to their college is not the identical as what issues to a different college,” Umphrey stated.
Securing the community
Identification administration — offering totally different ranges of AI and different expertise entry based mostly on whether or not a consumer is a trainer or pupil, for instance — has additionally been key to Olathe’s safety technique, Umphrey stated.
“We’ve got everybody from a kindergartner to a 40-year veteran trainer. With the ability to set up permissions inside the environment is actually essential to us — making certain that the child that’s in kindergarten is getting the precise entry based mostly on who they’re,” Umphrey stated. Among the many causes for id administration is making certain that college students are solely uncovered to age-appropriate instructional sources, he defined.
One other prime cybersecurity concern for the district is phishing makes an attempt that focus on each employees and college students, “primarily by way of impersonators pretending to be the principal on the college,” he stated.
That sort of phishing is widespread partly as a result of contact info for workers in management positions is out there to the general public, which incorporates unhealthy actors.
“We spent a superb period of time over the past couple years coaching our employees [on phishing], and it has been phenomenal to see what we used to do or what used to occur to us in comparison with what’s occurring now,” Umphrey stated. He added that employees have official instruments to report phishing makes an attempt, however he additionally receives emails and even texts from employees asking about potential phishing makes an attempt.
Along with securing the community, the Olathe District is prioritizing pace. The academic system is ” turning into increasingly more digital, and in consequence, you realize, we’d like that connectivity to be as dependable as potential,” Umphrey. Wi-Fi 7 shall be deployed this summer time to ship sooner, extra dependable connectivity as tutorial testing software program and knowledge analytics calls for enhance throughout the district, Umphrey stated.
“It is getting put in proper now — we’re going by way of every of our buildings, putting in the switches … and changing the [Wi-Fi] entry factors,” he stated.
Supporting the district’s AI, cybersecurity, and community priorities isn’t any small feat. Umphrey credit the IT group operating these initiatives as “a small group of people that may most likely go different locations and make much more cash than they make in a college district, however they actually do care.”
He continued: “We’re not the most important district within the nation, however 30,000 [students] is respectable and all of us really feel like we’re a part of one thing that issues.”
