@OKCPS Executive Director Information Technology Position Open: Please Apply!

For the past two weeks (at least since February 14, 2012, when I first saw the position posted) Oklahoma City Public Schools has officially listed a position opening for “Executive Director Information Technology.” Information about the position is only visible, however, when someone creates a free applicant account on the district’s 3rd party personnel application site, SearchSoft.

Strangely, however, the district personnel department has not posted a position description on the official “Administrator Job Descriptions” page where all other job descriptions are listed/provided in PDF format.

I called the district’s “Human Capital Resources” office (personnel department) late Thursday this week, and asked if they could email me a copy of the position description. The only description currently available for the responsibilities and duties of the “Executive Director Information Technology” for Oklahoma City Public Schools currently is:

Supervise the selection, performance, and evaluation of Information Technology Staff.

The person I spoke with (whose name I recorded, of course) said she would email me the position description, but I haven’t received it to date. It is VERY strange the district has officially posted a call for applications for this position on its personnel website, but has apparently not communicated anything OUTWARDLY (on the public web) about this position being available or what the responsibilities/duties of this position entail. I’ll provide some more background about this position and what the new IT director is going to face, but let me first cut to the chase.

If you have experience serving as a director of IT for a school district and have both a vision for blended learning and engaged, digital learning: We (parents & community constituents) need YOU to apply for this position with Oklahoma City Public Schools. OKCPS has over 40,000 students and a ton of teachers, and desperately needs a new director of IT with a vision for blended learning, student engagement, ubiquitous computing, and 1:1 learning. PLEASE APPLY FOR THIS POSITION AND CIRCULATE / FORWARD THIS LINK to other innovative educational leaders you know who might apply. I do not know but would guess this position’s salary range is close to 100K per year. It certainly should be for the responsibilities it SHOULD entail and involve, even if those are not currently reflected on the district’s 1 sentence description of the job roles. Visit the official job opportunities page for OKCPS and click on the yellow sign to create a SearchSoft site profile and apply for the position. You’ll find the job listed under the title “Executive Director Information Technology,” it is job listing #50008321.

See my post from February 13, 2012, “Online Petition: Oklahoma City Public Schools Must Adopt Balanced Internet Content Filtering Policies” and my post on balancedfiltering.org on November 21, 2011, “Advocating for Balanced Content Filtering in Oklahoma City Public Schools” for some additional background about where current district IT leadership is with its efforts to completely block all student access to interactive websites like Edmodo, Evernote, Google Docs, Gmail, etc. I have met directly with the OKCPS superintendent, Karl Springer, as well as the current IT director and have also spoken directly to the school board at a public meeting. I do think Karl wants to move forward with a vision for 21st century learning in the district, but as Jim Collins would remind us, he “needs to get the right people on the bus.” That’s why this open position for “Executive Director Information Technology” in OKCPS is so critical.

Please spread the word. On behalf of my three children enrolled in OKCPS schools, as well as thousands of other students in the district, hundreds of teachers, and thousands of parents, PLEASE encourage visionary educational technology leaders you know around the United States to apply for this job. We need a kind, collaborative, smart, and visionary educational leader “taking the rudder” of our IT department in Oklahoma City Public Schools. A LOT hangs in the balance with this job hire for the district.

Thanks for your help getting out the word!

Technorati Tags: city, okcps, oklahoma, schools, public

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