On Janesville police seeking district's former IT boss

Posted on November 2 at 3:54 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

If all of this is true, This is wrong, this is wrong, THIS IS WRONG! Make no mistake where I stand.

I am trying to lead you along here, but I guess I just have to lay it out there.

You have two options, either you can believe that this IT person did this by himself or not.

If you say he did this by himself, you are essentially saying that all the checks and balances up the chain of command have failed, pointing to apathy, incompetence, poor judgement..... And then, while this is a bad situation, why isn't more made of the situation going up the chain of command; using him as a scapegoat.

If you think that others knew what was going on as mentioned by other commenters, then we have a whole other set of issues.

Either way, I believe the buck doesn't stop with him. This doesn't give him a free pass either.

I would like to see more detail on the inflated prices. I have a hard time assuming that with a contract price for that amount that it was an apples to apples comparison. There should have been a lot of eyes that seen this. Again, if it really was and apples to apples comparison, seen by many, there are issues beyond Mr. Keirns. Is it responsible journalism to say these things without presenting the facts? Nonetheless, this whole thing will be interesting as it continues to unfold.

On Janesville police seeking district's former IT boss

Posted on November 2 at 3:05 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

Hello again,

Let me play this out for you.

I am the lunch person at the school. I suggest and get in contact with a milk distributor who would like to get the school's milk business. I contact the Administration of the school and and ask them to consider a bid from this milk distributor.

Ultimately, the new distributor gets the milk contract. It is then learned the lunch person's significant other is a driver for the milk distributor, their uncle and nephew are farmers for that distributor, and their daughter is the sales person for this milk distributor.

Wrong? Who was wrong? Employee, Administrator, both?

If this is wrong, we'd better start buying our milk from California because I don't know many districts who have employees who don't have someone working in the the dairy industry, either directly or indirectly. :)

On Janesville police seeking district's former IT boss

Posted on November 2 at 1:50 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

Hey Mr. Freeradical,

I think we are on the same page on this, with a few exceptions.

Again, I base my opinion on the idea that Mr. Keirns was NOT an official "Administrator" of the district.

Let's take the school out of it and talk about private industry for a moment.

In an LLC, Sub-S Corp, or a Corporate structure, only the Board of Directors have any legal authority to purchase and enter into contract on behalf of the company. Internally, the company will delegate this authority to trusted people for the company operations including to purchase items. Ultimately, however, every check and contract MUST be signed by one of the Directors or Officers.

Now, if this "trusted" person does something like enter a purchase for a company that they own, they are really only doing it on behalf of the Directors. The trusted employee has to be dealt with internally, like being fired. Ultimately, it was one of the Directors, usually the CFO who has their name on the signature; and their signature on the check.

Taking this same view in the school, I am confident that the name on the check was not Mr. Keirns. While he may be a convenient scape-goat with whom trust was abused, it goes much higher in the chain of command.

On Janesville police seeking district's former IT boss

Posted on November 2 at 12:32 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

Let me set a few things straight.

Does this whole thing stink? YOU BET.
Do I think there is more to this story than what is being printed? YEP.
Do I think what has happened, and continuing to happen is right? No way!

On the other hand.

Does not this gentleman deserve his day? Last I heard we still have that right.

There are some loopholes, and maybe this is a good time to take a look at them.

I hope this reporter is diligent through this process. :D

On Janesville police seeking district's former IT boss

Posted on November 2 at 12:25 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

MikeF,

Thank you for your information. This is exactly what I though.

However...here is the beef.

Most technical IT Directors in the state of wisconsin are not "officers" of the schools. There is no licensure for Technical Directors. Only the "Instructional Technology Directors", those who hold a DPI licensure, are officially directors. The only official DPI license of officer status that I know of that does not require teaching degree is that of the Business Manager.

If this person does hold a DPI licenseure, then by all means, we have a legal issue.

If, however, he is like most of the technology directors and technology administrators throughout the state who do not have any sort of association with the DPI, there really can be nothing. It is no more than a suggestion, albeit a strong suggestion from someone with a huge influence, to purchase software from this company. If he is not a DPI licensed administrator, he "officially" does not have any authority or liability to spend any money. Therefore, the Business Manager (who would be licensed by the DPI as an officer) and the District Administrator (also licensed by the DPI as an officer) are the folks who make the decision to purchase the software. Since they did not, seemingly, benefit from the purchase, no crime.

Again, my thought is that this person is not licensed by the DPI and therefore not a officer of the organization.

And therefore, the suggestion to purchase XYZ product from ABC company is merely a suggestion to the folks who are the officers of the organization. It would be no different than the lunch lady telling the District Superintendent to purchase a needed van from her husbands dealership. Would the lady benefit from the purchase, yes, indirectly. But again, she does not control the budget/spending. And if this person in the article is not a DPI "Administrator", then neither does he.

I know it is a stretch but it is reality.

On Janesville police seeking district's former IT boss

Posted on November 2 at 11:34 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

Also, would anyone have cause of issue if this person would have saved the district $30k? Did the school get everything that it paid for in the contract? While shady and unethical, along with all the other stuff that has gone down pointing to incompetence, with this alone, what is the crime?

On Janesville police seeking district's former IT boss

Posted on November 2 at 11:24 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

Reading it again, I ask in ernest, did he do anything technically wrong? Ethically, SURE! Is there some law that says you can not purchase things from employees' businesses?

I can see an issue with purchasing an exact product for more money. Again, technically wrong or just ethically wrong.

Now, getting to the Antivirus stuff, I am pretty sure this is more tricky. But again, while a volatile issue, does purchasing Antivirus from his own company constitute a crime?

I think this could open a pandora's box, not only for IT people, but every staff member of a district who either owns, or spouse owns, or distant relative owns a company that does business with a district.

I wonder what the legal issues this is addressing. As I understand it, unless you are licensed by the state as a teacher or administrator, you are an at-will employee.

When I was a member of the board of directors for a company, I had a legal obligation to the company. Along with that, my position, therefore I in that position, could be legally liable for ethical/legal violations pertaining to the company. Whereas, the same legal obligations did not apply to others who were not directors of a company.

As a director, I could enter into contracts on behalf of the company. I had budget/spending authority that would hold up in a court of law. If I decided to spend 1 billion dollars on a toothbrush, as the IT Director in this company, the contract would be created as the IT Director who has authority to enter into the contract, and the company would be liable for that contract.

Not that I think this guy shouldn't get a good swift kick, in short, unless this Director is licensed as an administrator with budget authority, doesn't the funding issue ultimately fall on person(s) responsible for the budget?

I know that if I sign a contract right now, the arguement could and should be, "He does not have authority as a entity representative to enter into any contract."

Food for thought.

On District network is still suffering

Posted on November 8 at 10:57 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

The earliest viri to infect the home market were on the Apple II. How do I know, I was there and still have an Apple IIc in the garage. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of...

Nice summary Techpage. I think, and hope, that one change in education in the 21st century should be the inclusion of Technology Professionals (those who have industry certifications and know how, can do, and really make it their life work) into the Administration role in schools.

The way it is now in Wisconsin, only those who come up through the teacher ranks can achieve administration status in technology.

The only exception I see in this is with a Business Manager. This person needs to have the accounting and business skills first, and then fit into education. They do not have to be a teacher or come up through the teacher path. The same should be for Technology Directors.

Would schools hire a Nurse without being a certified Nurse? I don't know the answer but I assume not.

Would schools hire a Psychologist without being a certified Psychologist? Same question.

I want to make a very clear distinction here. What happens in the classroom should and must be in control of someone who knows how to teach, is a teacher; an Instructional Technology Coordinator. These are the people that know what needs to be taught and have the skills to integrate technology into everyday teaching.

As a tech person, while I care what happens in the classroom, it really isn't up to me to decide, nor do I want to. I want to know what you want to do and then build, design, engineer, support and administer the environment that accomplishes those goals.

Perhaps the easiest way to demonstrate this is in this exact example. Does having antivirus on computer add anything to student learning? What has having antivirus on a computer ever taught a student? Antivirus sits on computers and servers and takes up valuable resources that could be used by other applications. If you answer these questions based on the Instructional Technology Coordinator position, it seems logical to make the argument that spending money on antivirus products is not only a waste but a detriment to student learning. We could take the money we spend on antivirus annually and purchase more smartboard setups.

The true tech perspective adds a dose of real world savvy; this is what you need along with how technology functions, to the story so that things on the back end work and support the overall mission and goal of educating our children. I am confident that if you ask any tech to go without antivirus or a firewall, they will be perplexed.

On District network is still suffering

Posted on October 30 at 6:22 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

Couple of things.

1. Backup systems do not prevent future problems or anything. They are reactionary for WHEN problems happen. While backup and disaster recovery are good and necessary, this would be my last like of defense. It should be this happened, that happened, and finally, there was no backup or disaster recovery. Look at what happened and fix it!
2. "Very Lean" is a relative term to the value/importance/understanding of what is needed and what could happen. Often, as I see it, IT people are caught up in the tyranny of the urgent and are unable to attend the need of the necessary/essential. Often I am sitting at my computer and people will come up and say "Oh good, you aren't busy..." when I am helping someone else or working on an server/network issue.

I think it comes down to communication and understand among all parties involved, the aptitude, skills, and manpower it takes to do what needs to be done in an information world. It is easy to look at custodial staff and figure out what is needed to clean rooms and make everything work. It is physical and countable. It is much more difficult to do that in the techo/cyber world.
3. Old equipment, that is a problem everywhere. I am asked constantly, "Can we make it work for a little longer", like I have any say in the matter. Truth is, there is MTBF in all electronic equipment. It is not a matter of if it is going to fail, it is a matter of WHEN it is going to fail. There is a reason that HP, Dell, IBM etc will not warranty a server after a certain point. If a system is "mission critial" you better have it under warranty.
4. Virus not 100%. No virus protection is 100%. Something more to this story....
5. Documentation. Again, while necessary, how can you document anything when you are very lean? I am fairly confident the staff was doing all they could do, and then some, with the time they had and there is simply not enough time to do things properly. I am also confident that they took a gamble on what was most important and lost.
6. Virus from an employee laptop....interesting. So this school allowed for personal connections to the internal network. With all of the talk that is out there on security, still it was allowed. No NAC appliance? No other security measures? I hope that other schools take note that while the goal may be for users to bring their own devices into and onto the network, without proper planning and design, disaster can strike.

And I am willing to bet, none of these issues, if ever found out, were intentional.

On Five weeks for school computer fix

Posted on October 18 at 10:46 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

First, let me say that I don't think any of us really know what has led up to the issue. From this point on my views are merely speculative.

People in charge of technology should NOT be teachers. There is this movement in the state of Wisconsin that no matter what position there are in schools, the only truly qualified people to fill them are people who have come up the teacher ranks; because it is "education" Let's use this same logic to other things.

If schools need a doctor or nurse, the only person to fill this position should be a teacher?
If schools need an accountant/CPA, the only person to fill this position should be a teacher?
If schools need a plumber or electrician, the only person to fill this position should be a teacher?

Doing technology stuff now for over 16+ year, 5 of the last years in K-12, there is a severe disconnect between using technology in education and the understand on how technology works, and how to make it work safely and securely for education.

A router, switch, server, etc doesn't care where it is being used. The RFC's and IEEE standards in technology apply to everyone. Not only that, there is best practice. Often I see all of these overlooked. Why? there are many reasons but I think the most common reason is simply there are people "in charge" that simply do not have a clue on how technology works.

One example I have is simply this. We have some people who think that using passwords is a waste of time and students lose valuable learning time having to login with usernames and passwords.

Now, to the even blow average tech person this is stupid. Yet, when you have people who do not understand that they are participating in the real world with real world problems, you have them setting policy and standards that are in direct conflict of the standards that are already in place.

In the RFC's there are certain "well known" ports for services. Yet, time and time again, we have state level organizations who think it is more secure to choose port 564 for ssl traffic. Can it work, sure. Much like you "can" send a 70 mb file through email. Duh!