{"id":21237,"date":"2024-04-23T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lightspeedsystems.com\/blog\/multiple-skill-sets-required-for-school-district-it-leadership\/"},"modified":"2024-12-05T22:59:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T22:59:00","slug":"multiple-skill-sets-required-for-school-district-it-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lightspeedsystems.com\/ar\/blog\/multiple-skill-sets-required-for-school-district-it-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"\u0645\u062c\u0645\u0648\u0639\u0627\u062a \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0647\u0627\u0631\u0627\u062a \u0627\u0644\u0645\u062a\u0639\u062f\u062f\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0637\u0644\u0648\u0628\u0629 \u0644\u0642\u064a\u0627\u062f\u0629 \u062a\u0643\u0646\u0648\u0644\u0648\u062c\u064a\u0627 \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0639\u0644\u0648\u0645\u0627\u062a \u0641\u064a \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0646\u0637\u0642\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0645\u062f\u0631\u0633\u064a\u0629"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At the recent two-day 2024 District Advisory Council meeting in Austin, Texas, a group of Lightspeed Systems customers gathered to talk about the highest-priority challenges they face, along with best-practices for effectively addressing them. And while much of the discussion centered on technology and operational solutions, an interesting topic found itself mentioned often: the divergent skill sets needed for school district CTOs and IT leaders.<\/p>\n

To say that K-12 education has faced disruption over the past five years would be a tremendous understatement. The global pandemic accelerated digital learning, pressing school district IT to respond practically overnight.<\/p>\n

The wide adoption of 1:1 technology learning models, where each student has their own device, opened the door for unprecedented learning opportunities both in and out of the classroom. However, at the same time, it has also opened a Pandora\u2019s Box<\/a> of potential vulnerabilities for a district\u2019s technology infrastructure and its data privacy. With this shift CTOs and IT leaders have had to respond rapidly, scale up their skills (and that of their teams) in three key areas.<\/p>\n

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\nIT\u2019s Role in Technology Infrastructure and Network Security
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From smart boards to other district-wide IoT devices, from hardware appliances to students\u2019 mobile technology, the IT function has always had an important oversight role for a district\u2019s IT infrastructure. In CoSN\u2019s State of EdTech Leadership Survey 2023<\/a> report, Modernizing Infrastructure remained one of the top priorities surfaced by CIOs, as it has been for the past ten years. As the same study indicated, an emerging priority is Cybersecurity for these K12 leaders\u2014a new and increasingly important accountability for IT leaders over the past three years.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, malicious actors online currently view school districts as easy prey for cyberattacks. Comparitech, a cybersecurity and online privacy product review website, recently reported global ransomware attacks against K-12 and higher education institutions\u2014breaching over 6.7 million personal records\u2014had an estimated cost of more than $53 billion<\/a> in downtime between 2018 and mid-September 2023.<\/p>\n

Moreover, school cyberattacks are prevalent. Eighty percent of school IT professionals reported that their schools were hit<\/a> by ransomware in the last year, according to a global survey conducted by cybersecurity company Sophos.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, IT leadership in school districts must have a proven competency in network security and data privacy. Those leaders today must seek ongoing professional development in this shifting cyber landscape and have demonstrated experience in incident response, firewalls and intrusion detection systems (IDS), cloud computing, and more.<\/p>\n