Olathe College District CTO Josh Umphrey understands firsthand the problem of aligning IT targets 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 College. That frontline expertise informs how he approaches scholar privateness and community safety.
InformationWeek not too long ago caught up with the previous assistant principal turned CTO to debate how frequent IT challenges, notably round AI and cybersecurity, play out in another way in Ok-12 schooling. Umphrey defined that within the Olathe College 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 crew is managing the velocity at which expertise is deployed throughout the district. For instance, it is not at all times possible for the IT crew to deploy bleeding-edge expertise as shortly as academics would love.
As a former trainer, Umphrey totally understands that need, however he additionally is aware of that college districts face privateness, compliance and safety obligations that require a deliberate strategy.
Navigating app overload and strict information compliance
Managing an enormous software program surroundings with a lean workers is a continuing battle for the district, Umphrey mentioned.
“We assist round 2,400 totally different apps throughout the district and making certain that every one of them work is a close to impossibility.”
Making certain compliance with federal laws — together with the Little one On-line Safety Act (COPA), Household Instructional Rights and Privateness Act (FERPA) and HIPAA legal guidelines — additional complicates the trouble to handle so many functions, he added.
One other problem is that the Olathe District has a devoted IT crew of solely about 35 people serving 51 colleges.
“On high of that, now we have about 30,000 children in our district, all of whom are actively attempting to bypass every thing,” Umphrey mentioned.
Establishing scholar privateness guardrails
Defending scholar information and coaching academics on the menace panorama are among the many district’s high safety priorities, Umphrey mentioned. Whereas a trainer would possibly need to use a brand new AI expertise immediately, it is vital to contemplate the safety of scholar info and meet district pointers earlier than deploying new expertise, he mentioned.
The district’s use of AI instruments was “form of open at the start, after which we dialed it again. Now we’re locked into only a few that we all know have the precise guardrails in place to not prepare anyone outdoors, after which now we have very particular use circumstances,” Umphrey mentioned. Among the many Olathe District’s authorized 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 mentioned concerning the district’s strategy to AI. Olathe College District is collaborating with accomplice college districts to deploy AI “successfully, defend children, and guarantee that we’re discovering the precise methods to coach academics.”
Umphrey defined that the district’s AI applied sciences run throughout the inner community to forestall non-public scholar info from being shared publicly. AI is not the one potential menace to distributing non-public scholar information; human error presents one other privateness problem. If a workers member makes an attempt to share scholar info by way of their college’s e mail deal with, the safety platform will cease it and the IT crew will obtain an alert, he added. “5 years in the past I noticed that occur a handful occasions, however now our coaching is actually paying off, and we’re simply not seeing it as a lot,” Umphrey mentioned.
Because of coaching and relationship-building, Umphrey mentioned he’s happy that academics are comfy approaching him with questions on moral AI utilization, which can cut back the chance that scholar info is uploaded to exterior AI instruments, for instance.
For Umphrey, it is essential that academics and workers know that they will strategy him immediately with expertise questions or safety considerations.
“It at all times begins with relationships. It’s important to be a face, not only a title on an e mail. It’s important 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 mentioned.
Securing the community
Identification administration — offering totally different ranges of AI and different expertise entry primarily based on whether or not a consumer is a trainer or scholar, for instance — has additionally been key to Olathe’s safety technique, Umphrey mentioned.
“We’ve everybody from a kindergartner to a 40-year veteran trainer. Having the ability to set up permissions inside our surroundings is actually essential to us — making certain that the child that’s in kindergarten is getting the precise entry primarily based on who they’re,” Umphrey mentioned. Among the many causes for identification administration is making certain that college students are solely uncovered to age-appropriate academic assets, he defined.
One other high cybersecurity concern for the district is phishing makes an attempt that concentrate on each workers and college students, “primarily via impersonators pretending to be the principal on the college,” he mentioned.
That kind of phishing is frequent partly as a result of contact info for workers in management positions is on the market to the general public, which incorporates unhealthy actors.
“We spent a superb period of time over the past couple years coaching our workers [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 mentioned. He added that workers have official instruments to report phishing makes an attempt, however he additionally receives emails and even texts from workers asking about potential phishing makes an attempt.
Along with securing the community, the Olathe District is prioritizing velocity. The academic system is ” changing into increasingly digital, and consequently, you recognize, we want that connectivity to be as dependable as potential,” Umphrey. Wi-Fi 7 might be deployed this summer season to ship sooner, extra dependable connectivity as tutorial testing software program and information analytics calls for enhance throughout the district, Umphrey mentioned.
“It is getting put in proper now — we’re going via every of our buildings, putting in the switches … and changing the [Wi-Fi] entry factors,” he mentioned.
Supporting the district’s AI, cybersecurity, and community priorities isn’t any small feat. Umphrey credit the IT crew operating these initiatives as “a small group of people that may in all probability go different locations and make much more cash than they make in a faculty district, however they actually do care.”
He continued: “We’re not the largest 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.”
