Network Support for School Disctrict

[SagaLore]

There's a job opening listed in the classifieds for Technical Support at school district I attended in my youth.

I'm wondering if anyone here has experience working as the Network guy/gal for a school district. They didn't post a salary range, nor a phone number or contact person - just an address to send the resume.

Right now I work at an accouting firm with other network team members, my job is very stable. I don't know if it would be worth looking into this school gig - what is the job security like?

 

[Jzero]

The job security really depends...if you will be a member of the union, then once you are tenured, you will have nearly infinite job security. If you are non-union or don't get tenured, then your position could be cut for budgetary reasons or because someone doesn't like you. The good news is that if they have a network, and more and more schools do, they are always going to need someone to manage it, so they aren't just going to can you at the drop of a hat.

Working for a school system is practically my dream job. The pay isn't so great (although the guys where my mom works got paid $60k to start! WTF!), but there are a lot of good benefits:
Good health care plans
Good retirement if you stay on 25
Bankable sick days that you can cash in for $$$ when you leave/retire
A couple weeks of vacation time in addition to having off for every federal/jewish/christian holiday, plus spring and winter breaks (unfortunately, this type of job is usually 12-month, so no summer off).

Some cons:
Gotta work with kids. (Might be a pro if you like kids).
Gotta work with teachers.
Gotta work with a bureaucratic school system, and all the constraints of having a luddite superintendent.
If you're responsible for an entire district, you may be spending time driving from one building to another.
Pay will probably be lower than similar jobs in the private sector.
Hours will likely be earlier (7-4 or thereabouts. That's actually a Pro in my eyes, though).

 

[dquan97]

Originally posted by: Jzero
The job security really depends...if you will be a member of the union, then once you are tenured, you will have nearly infinite job security. If you are non-union or don't get tenured, then your position could be cut for budgetary reasons or because someone doesn't like you. The good news is that if they have a network, and more and more schools do, they are always going to need someone to manage it, so they aren't just going to can you at the drop of a hat.

Working for a school system is practically my dream job. The pay isn't so great (although the guys where my mom works got paid $60k to start! WTF!), but there are a lot of good benefits:
Good health care plans
Good retirement if you stay on 25
Bankable sick days that you can cash in for $$$ when you leave/retire
A couple weeks of vacation time in addition to having off for every federal/jewish/christian holiday, plus spring and winter breaks (unfortunately, this type of job is usually 12-month, so no summer off).

Some cons:
Gotta work with kids. (Might be a pro if you like kids).
Gotta work with teachers.
Gotta work with a bureaucratic school system, and all the constraints of having a luddite superintendent.
If you're responsible for an entire district, you may be spending time driving from one building to another.
Pay will probably be lower than similar jobs in the private sector.
Hours will likely be earlier (7-4 or thereabouts. That's actually a Pro in my eyes, though).

I'm thinking of volunteering at a local HS...just to get my foot in the door

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Jzero
The job security really depends...if you will be a member of the union, then once you are tenured, you will have nearly infinite job security. If you are non-union or don't get tenured, then your position could be cut for budgetary reasons or because someone doesn't like you. The good news is that if they have a network, and more and more schools do, they are always going to need someone to manage it, so they aren't just going to can you at the drop of a hat.

Working for a school system is practically my dream job. The pay isn't so great (although the guys where my mom works got paid $60k to start! WTF!), but there are a lot of good benefits:
Good health care plans
Good retirement if you stay on 25
Bankable sick days that you can cash in for $$$ when you leave/retire
A couple weeks of vacation time in addition to having off for every federal/jewish/christian holiday, plus spring and winter breaks (unfortunately, this type of job is usually 12-month, so no summer off).

Some cons:
Gotta work with kids. (Might be a pro if you like kids).

Yea I like kids. 🙂

Gotta work with teachers.

Thankfully the school district is a bit more conservative them some of those liberal schools that force Islam as a curriculum.

Gotta work with a bureaucratic school system, and all the constraints of having a luddite superintendent.

Sounds just like my firm and the CEO. 😀

If you're responsible for an entire district, you may be spending time driving from one building to another.

15 minute drive as compared to the 1 1/2 hour drive I have to my remote offices? Definitely not a con.

Pay will probably be lower than similar jobs in the private sector.

Know of any sites with salary statistics?

Hours will likely be earlier (7-4 or thereabouts. That's actually a Pro in my eyes, though).

Yea that's a pro in my eyes too. My wife already works from 7 - 3:30 at her job.

 

[Murpheeee]

I interviewed for one last summer.
Most schools use MACs heavily and this one in particular had just bought all it's teachers Apple Notebooks running OS-X.....which I had not much experience of at that time, so I missed out.

I think it would be a cool place to work. More laid back than corporate.

 

[Nosaj]

I am the network manager at a school corp. (18 schools, ~3000 workstations). We moved away from macs about 4 years ago in favor of the wintel systems. The biggest problems are "little hackers" that will try to bring a system down.

You can't beat the hours, m-f 8-4:30. No overtime, no late night users that need attention, no weekend work!

 

[Jzero]

Pay will probably be lower than similar jobs in the private sector.

Know of any sites with salary statistics?

I looked around, but I couldn't find much. If you are in the union, then your pay would probably be determined by some scale. The guys I referred to that are getting $60k are non-union. I believe the union guys that quit before they were hired were getting in the $40k range, but I'm not certain.

It might be a good fit for you, though. I keep telling my mom as soon as those guys quit, let me know 😀

 

[EagleKeeper]

Chase it. Worst is that you can say no based on the offer.

 

[GeekDrew]

The school district I attend has hired me as a network tech part-time, and the pay isn't great... but the hours are 😉

Also, they have an opening for a full-time tech, which I've applied for, and it's hiring pay is 25-35 thousand/year. I know of only one person, in ANY school district, that has been fired/resigned/quit/laid off/etc from a network tech position, and that was because on a dare, he went skinny dipping in a pond that's on school property. Literally. No clothes. In front of the school. During hours of operation. While there were students looking out the panes of glass along the front of the school. Need I say DUH?

But yeah... I think that being a network tech for a school district is an awesome job. The pay isn't wonderful, but the benefits are awesome, the hours are great, and I'm already used to the politics involved with schools. The hours our network techs work are 8-4, though we're free to work (unpaid) overtime as much as we want. Three of us do routinely, just because we haven't got anything more important in our lives to do than work on school networks. As for holiday/vacation, our techs get nearly everything that the students get... we are on the "administrative" side of things, so we have to work during some "vacations". Christmas break, for example, we're supposed to go in a few days that the students are out. I didn't this past christmas, but I guess that one or two other techs did. We worked all of Thanksgiving break, but that's because we decided to completely rebuild the network - we built new servers, re-imaged all clients, verified all network connectivity, etc.

Anything else you wanna know?

Andrew

 

[Nosaj]

Hey GeekDrew84,

Do you happen to know what the total number of computers and the number of techs? In our corp, it's ~3000 computers, ~70 servers and 5 techs!

BTW, what do you guys use for imaging? We currently have Imagecast, but I am evaluating ghost.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Nosaj
Hey GeekDrew84,

Do you happen to know what the total number of computers and the number of techs? In our corp, it's ~3000 computers, ~70 servers and 5 techs!

BTW, what do you guys use for imaging? We currently have Imagecast, but I am evaluating ghost.

PowerQuest's Images are the best! We use TCP/IP boot disks to load the Image from a network share.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: GeekDrew84
The school district I attend has hired me as a network tech part-time, and the pay isn't great... but the hours are 😉

Also, they have an opening for a full-time tech, which I've applied for, and it's hiring pay is 25-35 thousand/year. I know of only one person, in ANY school district, that has been fired/resigned/quit/laid off/etc from a network tech position, and that was because on a dare, he went skinny dipping in a pond that's on school property. Literally. No clothes. In front of the school. During hours of operation. While there were students looking out the panes of glass along the front of the school. Need I say DUH?

I guess he was fond of little girls and boys. 😀

But yeah... I think that being a network tech for a school district is an awesome job. The pay isn't wonderful, but the benefits are awesome, the hours are great, and I'm already used to the politics involved with schools. The hours our network techs work are 8-4, though we're free to work (unpaid) overtime as much as we want. Three of us do routinely, just because we haven't got anything more important in our lives to do than work on school networks. As for holiday/vacation, our techs get <EM>nearly</EM> everything that the students get... we are on the "administrative" side of things, so we have to work during some "vacations". Christmas break, for example, we're supposed to go in a few days that the students are out. I didn't this past christmas, but I guess that one or two other techs did. We worked all of Thanksgiving break, but that's because we decided to completely rebuild the network - we built new servers, re-imaged all clients, verified all network connectivity, etc.

Anything else you wanna know?

Andrew

Well... I currently make 33.5k where I'm at (after last raise), and I'm only into my 2nd year. We get mandatory paid overtime during tax season. I have 5 offices I support, 2 of which I each visit once a week with average 1 1/2 hour driving time - and we get mileage reimbursement at 37 cents a mile (non taxed). And I get my tax returns filed for free each tax season. 😀 We have a very progressive IT manager who likes to spend on new toys, so I have a chance to play with a lot of different technologies.

Senior year I was in this high school, they just began putting in the ethernet. They also got grant money to put in a computer lab filled with Compaqs, 166mhz CPUs and 16 megs of ram. The rest of the rooms had the classic macintoshs or Apples IIe's. So I'm hoping there's been some improvement since then! (5 years ago) And this job appears to be a loner job, so no IT coworkers...

 

[GeekDrew]

We don't have remotely that many. I would guess ~1500-2000 workstations. We have ~10 servers (can't remember exactly... we downed some old ones and upped some new ones), and we have three full time techs (who also work as the network admins (admin network stuff), one "administrator" (paperwork guy for the legal stuff), and two part-time techs (who report VERY few hours (they're normally only used when upgrading a lot of workstations, when we re-built the network, many new client deployments or setups, etc)).

Right now we use Ghost, accessed via boot disks (either floppy or CD). Our network O/S is Novell NetWare, though I hate it. 🙁 One or two of our techs are working on a PXE and remote-boot based imaging solution... I haven't got any details on that though. I can't wait. It would making imaging a lot easier. Some of our students love to have fun playing with settings, and it's normally easier to re-image than to correct the problems. Yes, we do have security restrictions, but when teachers log in for students that causes the system to fall apart. That's also the reason why staff accounts are becoming more and more restricted... which is both a blessing and headache. We even have printers restricted to the point that a tech has to install them on the machines (students and staff printing to printers that they shouldn't have been).

BTW... I have IM clients installed... see sig.... take that as a hint I'm bored. lol 😉

Andrew

 

[Gand1]

SagaLore,

Working for a school is a great job if you are looking for security and they have a union. What state is this in? In PA, Level 1 tech starts at 31 and change and level 2 starts at 41 and change. Union's give a raise between 2% and 3% every six months so even then the "lower" salary is not that bad. Health benefits are awesome and you are generally required to put towards a retirement fund. I chose TIAA-CREF and am emmediately vested in my fund. We also have free seminars all the time about how to invest properly.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Gand1
SagaLore,

Working for a school is a great job if you are looking for security and they have a union. What state is this in? In PA, Level 1 tech starts at 31 and change and level 2 starts at 41 and change. Union's give a raise between 2% and 3% every six months so even then the "lower" salary is not that bad. Health benefits are awesome and you are generally required to put towards a retirement fund. I chose TIAA-CREF and am emmediately vested in my fund. We also have free seminars all the time about how to invest properly.

I live in PA.

 

[Tallgeese]

Originally posted by: GeekDrew84
We even have printers restricted to the point that a tech has to install them on the machines (students and staff printing to printers that they shouldn't have been).

Why not put restrictions on the queues/shares instead? That way, even if they set up additional printers, it wouldn't matter.

 

[GeekDrew]

I'm in agreement. Unfortunately, our paperwork boss isn't. You know, he makes about as much sense as a lead brick sometimes. (PRAYING he doesn't read these forums.)

 

[aswedc]

At my school (PA also) the majority of the techs are either incredibly stupid or don't do anything at all - since no one in the administration knows a thing about technology there is no one to evaluate their work and they can get away with this. You'd probably be able to surf ATOT all day or something 😀

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: aswedc
At my school (PA also) the majority of the techs are either incredibly stupid or don't do anything at all - since no one in the administration knows a thing about technology there is no one to evaluate their work and they can get away with this. You'd probably be able to surf ATOT all day or something 😀

what makes you think I don't already 😀

 

[Nosaj]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Nosaj
Hey GeekDrew84,

Do you happen to know what the total number of computers and the number of techs? In our corp, it's ~3000 computers, ~70 servers and 5 techs!

BTW, what do you guys use for imaging? We currently have Imagecast, but I am evaluating ghost.

PowerQuest's Images are the best! We use TCP/IP boot disks to load the Image from a network share.

Can you multicast them to an entire lab?

 

[Tallgeese]

Originally posted by: Nosaj

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Nosaj
Hey GeekDrew84,

Do you happen to know what the total number of computers and the number of techs? In our corp, it's ~3000 computers, ~70 servers and 5 techs!

BTW, what do you guys use for imaging? We currently have Imagecast, but I am evaluating ghost.

PowerQuest's Images are the best! We use TCP/IP boot disks to load the Image from a network share.

Can you multicast them to an entire lab?

Yepper!

PQ's utilities are SWEET SWEET CANDY!!

 

[Nosaj]

Originally posted by: Tallgeese

Originally posted by: Nosaj

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Nosaj
Hey GeekDrew84,

Do you happen to know what the total number of computers and the number of techs? In our corp, it's ~3000 computers, ~70 servers and 5 techs!

BTW, what do you guys use for imaging? We currently have Imagecast, but I am evaluating ghost.

PowerQuest's Images are the best! We use TCP/IP boot disks to load the Image from a network share.

Can you multicast them to an entire lab?

Yepper!

PQ's utilities are SWEET SWEET CANDY!!

Hmmmm, I was just reading the details on Powerquest's Deploy Center and they look pretty good. I am looking to purchase 2000 licenses, so I hope there is a pricebreak beyond the $250 USD for 10 workstations :Q . I am looking at paying ~$6.25 per station for ghost.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Nosaj

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Nosaj
Hey GeekDrew84,

Do you happen to know what the total number of computers and the number of techs? In our corp, it's ~3000 computers, ~70 servers and 5 techs!

BTW, what do you guys use for imaging? We currently have Imagecast, but I am evaluating ghost.

PowerQuest's Images are the best! We use TCP/IP boot disks to load the Image from a network share.

Can you multicast them to an entire lab?

The PowerQuest suite does include that feature.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: Nosaj
I am looking at paying ~$6.25 per station for ghost.

Ghost also includes multicast 😉

Andrew

 

[Nosaj]

Originally posted by: GeekDrew84

Originally posted by: Nosaj
I am looking at paying ~$6.25 per station for ghost.

Ghost also includes multicast 😉

Andrew

Yeah, I am playing with ghost now, and it is by far the best cloning software that I have tried.