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External IT review urges governance fixes; CIO asks board to reassign a senior secretary to tech admin duties
Summary
LeanFrog’s IT review found the district’s tech services reliable but heavily dependent on individuals; it recommended stabilizing help‑desk procurement, clarifying instructional vs. technical roles, standardizing intake/workload visibility, and formalizing governance. CIO Kelsey Heagel asked the board to reassign an existing senior secretary to the IT office to perform administrative and procurement tasks.
An external assessment of the district’s information‑technology operation briefed the board on Jan. 14 and urged the district to complete a set of near‑term fixes to protect current performance and prepare for rising complexity from AI, cybersecurity and device scale.
The consultant, Byron Hedrickk, told trustees the department provides broadly reliable services but depends heavily on specific staff members. He recommended six themes: stabilize the help‑desk and procurement function (noting a key procurement/help‑desk staffer is retiring in June), clarify instructional technology vs. technical operations roles, make school‑level technical support more equitable, standardize intake and workload visibility districtwide, formalize cross‑functional technology governance, and prepare to restructure IT in 18–24 months if complexity scales further.
CIO Kelsey Heagel said she had already implemented some immediate steps: TSC (technical support contact) meetings were shifted toward hands‑on training; staff are compiling SOPs and a vendor inventory; and an inventory push is scheduled during school breaks to barcode equipment and improve asset tracking. Heagel requested that the board reassign one senior secretary from a merger of other central offices into IT to handle procurement and administrative bookkeeping — a reallocation she said would be neutral to headcount and permit help‑desk capacity to shift to more technical support.
Board reaction: Trustees questioned how St. Charles compared to peer districts and asked about timing and cost. Hedrickk said many districts separate instructional and technical functions and that the district’s present hardware spend is high relative to others; he recommended doing the governance and process fixes before any structural reorganization and noted the district would likely need to add a coordination layer within 18–24 months. Heagel said immediate low‑cost steps were already under way and the requested reassignment would allow better purchasing and administrative continuity.
Next steps: Administration will present a formal request to reallocate the senior secretary position at the next business meeting and continue the inventory, SOP and TSC training work prior to any reorganization.
