East Lycoming School District has an information technology vacancy.

In terms of the director of IT position vacancy, at the work session on Feb. 3, there was some discussion regarding eliminating this position from the Act 93 group and/or changing the job description in some form, stated Dr. Mark Stamm, superintendent of schools during a recent board meeting.

As Stamm discussed in December, there are two main parts to this position: (1) A backend network infrastructure management piece and (2) a forward facing administrative position focused on instructional technology and operational software systems.

“Finding someone who has both of these skill sets is challenging,” he noted.

As a result, Stamm said he was seeing districts that separate the two positions.

However, both of them require supervision-management duties and therefore are prohibited from belonging to a public sector collective bargaining agreement (i.e. Education Association / Support Professional Association, etc.).

Since they are prohibited from belonging to collective bargaining agreements, they must fall under the Act 93 agreement.

When surveying districts in IU17 and IU16, all but three employ a Director of Technology as an Act 93 administrator.

Of the 24 districts that responded, the average salary is $94,853.00 and the average for 10 or more years of experience is $97,030.00. Some have various layers of maintenance technicians (Tech 1, 2, 3 etc.) but because of the PA Labor Relations law, maintain the supervision of these programs in the Act 93 group.

Three districts contract this service to an outside agency. The consensus from these districts is that the service is expensive and not ideal.

Two of the three would move towards internal people if they had the option locally in the job market.

Stamm recommended the board request him to create a revised job description focused on the backend network

infrastructure management primarily.

The forward facing software side can be part of this without a direct role with classroom instructional technology, Stamm stated.

The classroom expertise will be the more challenging part to find with the other skills, he said.

The board will review this with a solicitor before a decision on hiring is made.