Dive Brief:

• Joshua Mulloy, a network administrator and former district technology leader, writes for EdTech: Focus on K-12 that IT chiefs can practice clear strategies to be more efficient with limited funding for technology.
• First, Mulloy says, chief technology officers should use the Consortium for School Networking’s tool to calculate total cost of ownership and preferably break that down by year to understand the true return on investment and consider what the value of that investment would be for the school.
• Close working relationships between the CTO and the chief financial officer can be critical to get approval for tech purchases, and CTOs might consider fostering those connections and asking other IT employees to work on teams with finance department staff members for cross-team projects.

Dive Insight:

In some ways, it is getting easier to achieve widespread buy-in for tech ideas in schools. More people recognize the value of educational technology and have embraced the idea that schools should be preparing students for 21st century careers by introducing them to key digital tools early. Still, budgets are restrictive. State funding is only rising slightly in many places, and massive tech initiatives take a good deal of up-front investment. In many cases, the ed tech itself has to be a second step after schools reinforce their networks to handle the increased traffic.

The relationship-building strategy can be an important one. In higher education, chief information officers have also noted the benefit of forging connections across departments and winning allies for later projects. While this takes time and effort, there is no indication budgets are going to spike and take away the incentive.