Ratio of techs to equipment

[broc]

900 students, 60 teachers, 30 support staff.

approx 270 desktop PCs, 220 laptops, 6 servers, 45 IWB & projectors

1x NM (me) 2x technicians

[mortstar]

800 students, 50 teachers, 50 support staff.

2 x Win 2K3 servers
240 x XP machines
40 x (cripplingly slow) Win 98 machines
55 x laptops
1 x Mobile Classroom of Apple MacBooks
12 x IWBS & Projectors
35 x Projectors (in rooms without IWBs).

SIMS
Website
Content Filtering - in house.

Supported by...
...me - a 21 year old. Recently "promoted" from IT Tech in June after Network Manager moved to another school. However, still on same pay and no plans for any new IT support.

However, the SMT do want a new Learning Platform, a new external website, a new e-mail system, admin and curriculum networks consolidated into 1 - it's all quite daunting.

[tscnmuk]

600 Pupils
200 Students
55 Teachers
40 Support Staff

9 W2K3 R2 Servers
1 W2K3 Server
370 XP Desktops
80 Laptops
14 IWB & Projectors (+15 Standalone Projectors)

Exchange Server managed inhouse
Web Filtering managed inhouse
Integris MIS managed inhouse
School intranet managed inhouse

Me - Network Manager
Technican - Fully Employed
Technician - Apprentice with two days a week at college

[SpuffMonkey]

1400 students
180 staff

9x2003
Citrix
450 Desktops
150 laptops
IWB & Projectors in every classroom
Digital phone switch
CCTV system
ADT security system
Swipecards
Cashless catering
CMIS/ePortal

Pretty much everything in house with no external support

Self and 2 tired techies

[alexknight]

500 students
50 staff

3x2003 servers
150+ Desktops
50 laptops
IWB & Projectors in every classroom
CCTV system
SIMS
Website – in house
Content Filtering - in house
All our own installations of cabling, AV Whiteboards and projectors
Responsible for all I.T budgets and bids
Responsible for all I.T equipment procurement
Soon to include Video conferencing and multi media provision

Just me on about 17K.

Question, should 'I' have more help and an increase in salary?

[Heebeejeebee]

1050 students
65 Teachers
40 Support

9 2003 servers + 1 linux
300 ish PCs (XP)
100 or so laptops
Website (in house)
All our own installations of cabling/whiteboards/projectors etc (we have a helpful site manager)
IT budgets (3 at present)
Responsible for all I.T budgets and bids
Responsible for all I.T equipment procurement
34 IWB at present (13 more soon)
SIMS
PAT testing
All the other crap that comes our way (boiler settings/timings, anything vaguely IT etc)


Soon to have:

A spanking new £1m Virtual Reality Suite/Video Conferencing Suite that I'll be responsible for
E-reg
Cashless Dinner thingy

Just me and one tech who's only just been made full time. I do have a placement webdev at the moment but when he's gone - nothing I guess.

Loads more money please !!

HBJB

[Lee_K_81]

500 students
50 staff

.......

Just me on about 17K.

Question, should 'I' have more help and an increase in salary?

Alex, I would say you are vastly underpaid if you are the sole person there. Although i'm not sure what the cost of living is there, i doubt it's mega cheap. You're further south than me. They've got a really cushy deal, if you left they would need to replace you with at least 2 people who wont know the school, the staff, their quirks, etc. If you have a good relationship with the head or somebody else in authority I would suggest you hint (or be downright blunt) and tell them you're (thinking of) looking for another job as you feel under valued for the responsibility you have. If they value at all they'll try and sort something out for you.

[CyberNerd]

Responsible for all I.T budgets and bids
Responsible for all I.T equipment procurement

management responsibility on a technicians salary - check the Technical Competencies Framework against the pay structure provided by your LEA (ours rate management lvl 1 at about £27k). Then ask for you job to be re-evaluated on the basis that you are doing work above that you were contracted to do (?) if they say no then appeal, if they still say no then go to ACAS - if ACAS don't resolve it then go to an employment tribunal.

[john]

~600 students
~80 Teachers
~70 Support
3 IT dudes

20x 2003 servers
300 ish PCs (XP)
35 or so laptops
E-portal
All our own installations of whiteboards/projectors/sound systems etc (we have a great site team as well as ourselves)
20 IWB at present (6 more soon)
Facility CMIS
Reprographics stuff
Intranet & VLE when we get it finished (Sharepoint Portal)
Full Exchange Email System
Phone setup
AntiVirus
Firewall Setup
CCTV
Weather Station

Coming Soon to a place near my desk :
PAT testing
External website
Site Wide Message System
A Video Conferencing Setup

[Midget]

MORE staff! I can't even get in an apprentice never mind properly paid full time staff.

I have almost 400 machines, 5 servers and 4 PDAs
11 IT suites
~1100-1200 kids

edit: 35 IWBs and 40odd projectors

Responsibility for making sure the CCTV works as well as searching for and recoving images/videos as required.

and one monkey (me) on £17500 and i've been told thats the most I can earn as I have no line management (due to them refusing to hire anyone else)

I do all the network design and deal with all the suppliers, ordering and budget control as well as being expected to fix all the shite educational software to make it work.

God this thread is depressing, for me at least.

[alexknight]

500 students
50 staff

.......

Just me on about 17K.

Question, should 'I' have more help and an increase in salary?

Alex, I would say you are vastly underpaid if you are the sole person there. Although i'm not sure what the cost of living is there, i doubt it's mega cheap. You're further south than me. They've got a really cushy deal, if you left they would need to replace you with at least 2 people who wont know the school, the staff, their quirks, etc. If you have a good relationship with the head or somebody else in authority I would suggest you hint (or be downright blunt) and tell them you're (thinking of) looking for another job as you feel under valued for the responsibility you have. If they value at all they'll try and sort something out for you.

Rant/
I have indicated that I feel undervalued. To make matters worse in the last three years I have been given no 'real' training on the extra aspects that have grown over the years. i.e no CPD.

I have asked on several occasions if they would consider me taking a relvant traing course to help me do my job better, such as the MSCE qualification, but it falls on deaf ears. I would have thought that a decent employer would be knocking on MY door and sending me on relevant qualifications and courses.

Having reviewed my situation I am taking it upon myself to take the qualification and at my expense. Then I will see what my position is at the end of the year and if it is still the same then THEY will have to find some other person (idiot) to do what I do on my salary.

Funny thing is that I used to love working at the school (stiil do to some extent) and wasn't that concerned about my pay, BUT when I then being crticicised over petty things, such as being a little 'offish' at times, etc etc etc, (becuase of the stress levels and lack of support, not to mention network users trying to offload their inadequacies onto to me) then i think hey wait a minute, this is not wortth the £980 a month that I take home??

/Rant over

[_Bat_]

- 94 Desktop/laptop machines
- 26 Interactive whiteboards along with 26 projectors
- Two separate in-house school websites
- Six servers
- 10 Admin machines
- Four laserjet printers
- 12 very old inkjet printers
- Anti virus
- Facility CMIS
- Facility EPortal

I'm paid £14,300. There is a NM above me but only see him about half a day a week due to other schools he works for. I'm perfectly happy with that wage. Not entirely sure what others make of it but from what i've seen, on this thread so far, my situation appears to be very good.

Because I have built (and am still building) the websites from scratch, they take up a lot of my time. As webman points out, trying to get the teachers to give in content for the website takes ages as well.

[Disease]

Can I also add since peoples lists are getting longer and longer that I/we also do:

External Website
Internal Website
Exchange x2
Outlook Web Access
2 ISA Servers
VLE Development
Onsite Security (We have to deal with Intruders)
All Procurment, bids and purchasing
Management of 3 Budgets
CCTV
As of today supplying support to one of our feeder schools
Firewalls
Phones
ALL Installs
Cabling
AV
Fire alarm duties
Converting all school videos to digital format and storing on servers
all PAT Testing
Sims Support
FMS Support
Cross Curricular ICT Development
Blah blah blah the list goes on

[Lee_K_81]

Wow! I think this thread just goes to show that IT staff are some of the most underpaid, over worked public sector employees. There seems to be an "Us and Them" attitude with teachers, Head included, that sees us as "just support staff", and therefore lower paid than any teacher. I'm not begruding teachers or saying most of them arent worth their salaries, but if me and my team went off (and switched servers, switches, etc.. off behind us) there would be chaos. On the other hand if any other member of staff or even several teachers (which happens on a daily basis) are off you wouldnt really notice.

I think my school realises that, which is why we're not in as bad a situation as some others.

Not sure what can be done overall though. There's no union for IT staff in schools, and standards in wages, etc, differ from LA to LA...... If anyone from BECTA is reading this, howzabout giving a recommendation to schools about ratios of techs to PCs, and other services managed in house. In industry, for a school sized organisation (num of "untrusted" users, machines, etc.) you would have an Exchange Admin, WebDev/Admin, NM, SM, a team of techs, and a help desk. In schools we're constantly firefighting. It's very difficult to be pro-active, testing is often only minimal as results are required "NOW".......

I'm begining to wish i'd never started the damn thread! we're all on verge of manic depression and stress, the lists of tasks we do, gets longer when somebody else reminds us of yet another task we do.

Ok, i've finished ranting now.

[budgester]

Damn there are some people here that are getting seriously underpaid and overworked.

I am a network manager, I have
2 fulltime techs.
1 four days a week tech, soon to be full time.
1 full time CMIS support.

1200+ students
150+ staff
12+ servers doing all the funky stuff schools do.
Phones, cameras etc.

However when I started here 4 years ago, it was just me on poo money.

However by budget planning and explaining things in non technical terms to SMT. I now have a the above, and we are able to respond to issues very quickly.

Having the staff and the resources allows me to align what we do as the IT department with what is required by the curriculum, and we got technology college status last year.

Hope this helps someone.

Regards

Budgester