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Technology specialists warn eliminating TSTS roles will slow fixes, cost instructional time
Summary
Five Technical Support and Training Specialist positions recommended for elimination would be shared or cut, district officials said; TSTS staff testified they handle thousands of support tickets, parent training and inventory tasks and warned consolidation would reduce service speed and device upkeep.
Multiple Technical Support and Training Specialists (TSTS) told the Cabell County Board of Education on April 21 that proposed cuts to their positions would produce longer downtimes for student devices, slower responses for teachers and parents, and diminished use of district technology investments.
William (Richard) Richards, Richard Black, Felicia Backus, Christie Schafer and Mike McCormick — TSTS at several middle schools and the county Career and Technical Center — described day-to-day duties that range from five-minute student device fixes to large-scale device inventories, parent trainings, classroom technology integration, and running maker spaces. "If that student in that situation would need to tell our teacher. The teacher would need to put in a support request, and then the support ticket would sit there until the TSTS shows up to that school," Richards said, describing a five-minute fix that would become a multi-day delay if his position were shared across multiple schools.
Christie Schafer told the board she recorded 3,583 work orders resolved and 14,470 emails answered in the past four years; Richard Black said he had handled 1,024 support tickets so far this year. The specialists said much of their work is preventative and not visible in budget spreadsheets: they deploy devices, ensure students have accounts, maintain inventory, and train teachers and parents in Schoology and district platforms. Felicia Backus compared the proposed cuts to "buying a new fleet of buses, and then firing the mechanics," arguing that the district risked paying for devices that teachers would stop using if support were not available.
Superintendent Timothy Hardesty said the five positions represent $459,400 in recurring salary costs and that many were funded with federal COVID relief that has expired. He described the decision as driven by a need to reduce recurring payroll to make the district's budget sustainable: "At the end of the day, we cannot continue down a road where we can't pay our bills," Hardesty said.
TSTS speakers urged alternatives, including reallocating other discretionary funds, revising contracts, or formalizing cross-school support relationships rather than eliminating embedded specialists. Board members asked follow-up questions and acknowledged the specialists' work while noting the budget pressure that prompted the recommendation.
