🧠 Organizational / Cooperative Theory

Collaborative Models

  • Teaming vs. takeover: Emphasis on shared ownership and collaborative service delivery with districts.
  • ISD-level consolidation: Merging of data centers and services across ISDs to reduce redundancy.
  • In-sourcing strategy: Internal service provision to avoid private sector overhead and profit margins.
  • Shared service formulas:
    • 50% student count
    • 50% device count
    • Variable helpdesk usage
    • Fixed engineering costs split evenly

Governance & Trust

  • Local control: Superintendents value direct relationships with tech directors.
  • Succession planning: Systems designed to persist beyond individual leaders.
  • MAISA as cooperative vehicle: Proposed intermediary for statewide engineering services.

Equity & Funding

  • Disparities in tax base: Rural districts face funding challenges due to lower local revenue.
  • Foundation allowance gaps: State formula overlooks tech infrastructure needs.
  • Legislative engagement: Advocacy to educate lawmakers on systemic funding gaps.

🌐 Network Infrastructure & Operations

Enterprise-Grade Networks

  • High-capacity links:
    • 20 Gbps connections between data center and districts
    • 10 Gbps inter-district links
  • Merged data centers: Six centers consolidated for cost and operational efficiency.

Failures & Risks

  • Loss of institutional knowledge: Private sector poaching leads to outages.
  • Recent outages: DNS issue caused multi-day data center failure.

Cloud Migration

  • Proof of concept: AWS migration via MiCloud.
  • Cost comparisons: On-prem vs. cloud (e.g., $16,200/year for system hosting).
  • Operational savings: Reduced engineering workload and improved security.

Security & Scalability

  • Statewide SOC: Proposed Security Operations Center for K-12 networks.
  • Pod computing vision: Modular, scalable services managed by backend experts.

🔍 Key Challenges & Strategic Insights

  • Talent retention: Public sector salaries can’t compete with private industry.
  • Funding misalignment: Districts spend ~3.5% on tech vs. industry standard of 7–11%.
  • Scaling cooperative models: Flexibility needed for diverse district needs.
  • Legislative advocacy: One-pager in development to communicate complex issues.