Keith Wright keeps up with the changing technology at Ramona Unified

Keith Wright has seen many changes in technology in his 24 years as an IT specialist for the Ramona Unified School District.

When the director of Information and Education Systems began working for the school district in August 2000, his main duties were to support the approximately 500 employees with their technology equipment. He and his staff now support 800 employees and 5,200 students.

“We had limited Internet connections and people didn’t really use e-mail that much,” Wright said. “Attendance, grades, schedules and registration were done on paper. now it’s all online. It allows us to enter registration data instead of someone else entering it manually, which saves us days and months of work.”

Wright has seen his staff grow from a webmaster and two computer technicians to nine members in the Educational Services Department – one webmaster, five technicians, staff two data support services and one administrative assistant.

The number of devices in the district has also increased during that time, from 500 to 8,000, including laptops, Chromebooks, desktop computers, phones, intercom devices and security cameras.

In addition, the number of technology tickets — which students and district employees bring in when they have a technology problem — has increased from 1,300 in the 2000-01 school year to 4,400 in the 2023 school year. -24.

Wright and his department have been proactive about adapting to change, but he says a school district as small as Ramona Unified often doesn’t have the budget to work with the latest and greatest technology.

Many changes have been made out of necessity, such as the implementation of the Canvas Learning Management Platform – which helps teachers build assignments, discussions, quizzes and files digitally while providing an assignment calendar and letter- email to students – during the COVID, he said. Canvas is now an integral part of school systems, he added.

Over the past 24 years, his services have gone from email and internet to wireless and add-on applications. The district was slow to implement Chromebooks, he said, but now there is a device for every student.

“Not everyone deals with change the same way as others, but we’re all in this for the same goal of student success,” Wright said.

Wright was ready to deal with the challenges caused by the rapid expansion of technology. His goal when he earned a bachelor’s degree in information management in 1996 from San Diego State University was to help people solve their technology problems.

He said: “I enjoyed working with computers and I enjoyed the game and logic of solving problems of systems and networks.” “That’s what attracted me to it, it’s the only solution to the problem. It was natural for me.”

Wright’s first job in the field was as a systems engineer for CompuCom, where he gained experience with a variety of systems, networks and devices. And it introduced him to a variety of clients, including the Ramona Unified School District.

From there, Wright gained more knowledge of servers and networking related Microsoft products while working for Vortex Data Systems.

When it came time for Wright to move his family – wife, Sylvia, and children Kristina Wright Huffman, 34; Ashley Kruse, 27; and Christian Wright, 21 – from Spring Valley, said they chose Ramona. He said he fell in love with the area and the schools while working for CompuCom. Shortly after they arrived in Ramona, her future position with the school district opened up.

“It’s a great family town and I like the people, and I like the people at the schools, so I thought it was a good fit for us,” Wright said. “I enjoyed living here and I had three children who went through the school district. It was fun. I had to participate in all their sporting events. I saw them grow and became close to each other, which is the most important thing.”

Another bonus is spending time with daughter Kristina Wright Huffman, who is the school district’s director of human resources, and son-in-law Bobby Huffman, the district’s superintendent of care and maintenance.

Wright said she worked with her daughter to improve the teaching process for teachers this year.

Teachers typically start work officially a few days before the start of a new school year, but informally they spend weeks before getting ready with training and staff development, he said. The new system allowed teachers to set up laptops, email, sign in and other technology tools about a month before school started.

“Now everything is done digitally so we’re able to get information very quickly and put new employees into programs that we use to communicate with school districts and all departments,” Huffman he said. We can also assign students to teachers more quickly than we did in previous years.

Huffman holds bachelor’s degrees in marketing and sociology with a full scholarship to ride softball at the University of Notre Dame in 2012. After graduation, he returned to Ramona and worked as an enrollment counselor. in college and a fishing coach for PowerLine Consulting.

“After 17 years of playing softball I needed to make a change in my life,” said Huffman, who began working at Ramona Unified as a staff specialist in 2014. Very confusing. I visited my dad at lunch and told him I was looking for a job change. He brought up the HR website for Ramona Unified and there was an open staff position. So I thought I’d give it a shot and see if I liked it and if I was a good fit.”

The assistant director of Human Resources at the time was Tony Newman, who was the assistant principal at Olive Peirce Middle School and the principal at the High School. of Ramona.

“Knowing the person I had the opportunity to work for made it sound like a very good job for me to apply for, so I did, and luckily I was selected,” Huffman said. who received a master’s degree in human resources from the National University. in 2018. “Here I am 10 years later. You don’t think about working in education unless you have your own experience with it. Fortunately, when my father was working in the district for a long time that gave me an opportunity. Without him I wouldn’t exist.”

Wright says she loves working with her daughter and considers it a blessing every day.

Huffman said the sentiment is mixed. And she also works with her husband, Bobby, whom she met through mutual friends a week before the COVID lockdown. Bobby was a student at the time and was interested in working for the school district.

“We looked at the district’s website to see what kind of positions were available and he applied and got in,” Kristina Huffman said, adding that she was hired in 2021.

The couple have two boys, Bryce, 1 1/2 and Blake, 3 1/2 and are expecting a baby girl named Bailey in Oct. 10.

“One of the best things about working in the district is getting to work with my dad every day,” Huffman said. “He is one of the hard working, dedicated people in this district. He will do everything he can to improve our staff and students. ”