u/Square_Pear1784

I promise I don't mean to post a vent, but I do think it may help to share a bit. First off, I admire teachers. It is a hard job. This is my first full school year, I took a job in k12 about 1.5 years ago. Any idea of being a teacher went out the door fairly quickly.. What a tough job, but I work with teachers who are passionate and care about their students, which again I really admire. My job is to provide teachers, staff, and students with the technical tools they need and support them the best I can. That is what I get paid for and I beleive it is meaningful work.

I've been in IT for about 6 years now and before that I did work several jobs in my 20s. Drywall, starbucks, painting, retial, etc.. Then I went to school and started out in help desk tier 1. Which no one likes the nonstop calls. Then I got promoted to tier 2 and I enjoyed that alright. I say this, to make the point that working at a charter highschool has been one of the hardest working experience I've had and the unique challenges of supporting teachers has been a surprise.

I do feel disrespected at times, scapegaoted for problems, and see weaponized incompentance to shift blame on me. I end up hiding with my office door shut for lunch, becuase it is the only way to not be inturrupted over technical questions. I truly feel that no ones wants to talk to me unless they have a technical problem. Maybe not everyone, but most.

There was no ticketing system when I started and I still am trying to get staff to use it. I get negative remarks on it, as if it is silly. When I started I had people inturrupting me in the hall and my office, just walking up to me hoping I'd drop everything or remember what they said and get back with them. I had people g chatting me on different emails, etc. I have worked hard to fix this, but not without resentment from some staff.

We have day loaners and I finally got library/study hall to take it, but Admin wants me to just take the day loaners back due to knowing that a study hall staff member was creating drama for me. Which is exactly why I end up being the only one handling it, and then get students all day at my office. Even when I tried to explain to admin why it helps to have day loaners off my hands, they shrugged it off like I didn't want to do my job.

I have a few teachers that decide to do class-wide testing that involve all students needing school chromebooks so that they can monitor the students better. I have told staff so many times to notifiy me in advance and I made another notice about it this week letting staff know that they must notify me and explained that it was cuases logistical issues and creates unplanned inturruptions. A teacher responded very snarky to me in chat and the entire staff saw it. I responded very professionally, but even another staff said It was very disrespected. Which I try not to take personally, but with the way things are right now things are starting to feel more personal.

I guess I came in trying to be nice with staff hoping I could build positive relationships, then to realize over time that maybe Teachers (not all) don't have to like me at all.

Is that what it is like? A good example is a teacher coming to my office door saying "printer is out of staples" and I thank them for letting them know and tell them I will take a look once I finish up what I am working on. For them to scough and say something to the extent " I guess I'll have to print tommorrow then".

Or if I have a spreadsheet of 110 students and I had one or two typos, suddenly I start hearing remarks as if I am being setup for the blame if testing goes south. Testing season is extra bad, becuase last year the person in charge of testing gave me bad numbers, and we were very short. Becuase of this there is so much scrutiny and pressure on me and I am just trying to get through this.

So sorry for the venting. But how do you'll build trust becuase I am struggling. Teachers are making me feel like the bad guy for making boundaries that should have always been in place. I feel this overall resentment towards me and it sucks becuase I am truly trying to support the best I can. I just am overwhelmed often. It is a chaotic environment.

I've not be a sole tech before, so I am not used to having no one on my team. I think most of this, is stress. When staff is stressed someone gets to be the punching bag and IT is an easy target. Plus this whole Canvas thing got everyone more stressed. I am just tired of feeling like I have no team. I am not perfect, so I'll take critisism at times, but this is exhuasting.

How is it for you. Am what I am describing normal? Or are there ways to manage this to build better relationships with staff?

I am a tech at a highschool and teachers are reporting that some students are getting "Submit failed.  Try again." when trying to submit assignments.

Also some asigments show as submitted on the students end, but the teachers can not see it.

It is not widespread to all students, which makes it difficult to pinpoint the issue for us?

I am wondering if this is on their end?

Maybe changes they are making since the breach May 1st?

Anyone else running into this today?

I am realizing end of the year testing is going to be a nightmere and I was planning to request money to buy us more charging carts for next school year, but the ones someone has suggested where $1500 and would take time to come in. I see some on Amazon that would arrive tomorrow or the next week.

I have never bought one of theses, so I don't want to regret a purchase, but something more affordable, like under $1k after chargers would be good.

I am working on a proposal to the board that will end up being about a lot mostly becuase the school pushed for testing to happen a certain way. I did very clearly explain the outcome (cost of getting more devices and charging carts), but the message I got was basically ask the board for it. So it added a lot of work on my end get qoutes and write a good defence for needs. Which then I have been a bit swamped to work on.

but the struggle I face, is that I have about 60 devices in my office. Then another 30ish in a day laoner cart.

I am ranting a bit, but the idea is that I am one person managing an entire tech department.

When I need to prep 80 devices for testing I can not predict which ones may not charge right or run into issues. I expect up to 5 at least to not work out. Is that bad? Is that normal?

I have students say "this day loaner has a keyboard issue" I'll powerwash it, test it out a bit.. find no issues at all. Or if one or two devices in my pile of 80 chromebooks does not charge right, I only have one chromebook charging cart. So honestly, I find out testing day and expect to have extras to cover.

so if 70 devices are needed for a testing day, I want 80minimun available.

Does that sound right? Or am I mismanaging devices? It is tough, becuase I am the only tech and chromebooks inventory is only one small part of my job. I can't spend all of my time monitoring my chromebooks to make sure every single one has zero problems?

Becuase then when they push my inventory for testing I've recieved some frustrastion for not being able to give hard exacts. I'll tell them I know we can provide 80, but we have more then that. Then they will say, oh so we have more then why not just give me the entire number. So okay, I have 90, but I don't want to push it, becuase I like to have 10 extra minimun. Becuase I can't promise we won't have issues with a few. Then the push is to expect the entire 90..

But then how else it is pushed, is if we have 80 year loaners, they will try to tightly plan for every student to bring in every single year loaner.

Honestly, I don't have to function like this. I want to not have to chromebook pinch every time we have testing and cross my fingers that nothing happens. Like someone gives me the wrong number (happened last year, was a disaster..).

I hope the board accepts the new budget so next year testing does not have to be so stressful.

With what I have, any suggestions? I am open to critique. I work isolated so I dont' get to bounce ideas off of other experienced techs.