Education Week - Managing the Digital District - October 2, 2013 - S14

Q&A: Houston Superintendent
Partners With CTO on Innovation
H
By Michelle R.
Davis
Grier:
Schad:
ouston Superintendent Terry B. Grier and
Chief Information Technology Officer Lenny
Schad have been working together less than
a year. But during that time, they’ve planned
and started executing a sweeping, $18 million
1-to-1 laptop initiative with the goal of erasing
the digital divide in the urban Texas district.
The multimillion-dollar “PowerUp” project,
which is beginning to roll out this school year, will ultimately
equip more than 130,000 students in grades 3-12 with laptop
computers. When the academic year kicked off, teachers at 11
high schools received laptops, and in January, all students at
those schools will get the devices.
Mr. Grier and Mr. Schad, the former chief information of-
ficer for the 65,000-student Katy, Texas school district, say
that during the time they’ve worked together, both have independently
done research for the project, visited successful
programs together, and disagreed on the scope and the type
of devices needed. But they say their working relationship is
exceptionally collaborative.
And that raises an important question: How do superintendents
and CTOs establish such relationships that, in
turn, help their districts use technology more effectively to
improve schools?
Education Week recently conducted a joint telephone interview
with Mr. Grier and Mr. Schad to understand what it takes
to build effective superintendent-CTO partnerships. Following
are excerpts from that interview:
Q: Does establishing a positive working relationship start with hiring?
Having someone you can trust and work with, who
will honestly push back and disagree if needed, and at the
same time stay focused on what we’re about, is important. Part
of my interview strategy was to find someone who not only
knew the work and could get on the same page in a hurry, but
could openly disagree and push back until we come up with a
better mousetrap.
Dr. Grier and I were on the same page from the very
first time I interviewed. I understood the foundation of what he
was trying to get accomplished.
That philosophical piece is an important part of making sure
the expectations of the superintendent and the CTO are in alignment.
He asks the questions I would not have thought about because
he comes from a different perspective. He makes me think
differently and approach things on a bigger scale.
It’s important I keep Dr. Grier updated on all aspects of this
initiative—not in gory detail, but I need to keep him abreast of
what’s going on. He has a keen ability to pick areas where he
might want to dig a little deeper.
Grier:
I try to stay away from decisions about the type of
hardware we’re going to use, whether we should let kids have
a case or a backpack to carry the computers. I’m more interested
in how teachers are going to use this technology. What I’m
trying to do is get people that really, really know what they’re
talking about, get us all together, and have the group become coarchitects,
versus this being Terry Grier’s digital-conversation
program.
Q: I know there were times when the two of you disagreed on how to
proceed. For example, Mr. Grier wanted to start the 1-to-1 initiative
with all Houston high schools and Mr. Schad recommended a more
limited kickoff. You ultimately settled on 11 schools. What impact
does it have on your professional partnership when you have those
disagreements?
Grier:
S14
EDUCATION WEEK | October 2, 2013
Managing the Digital District >>www.edweek.org/go/digitaldistrict-report
Lenny told me we needed to slow down, that we
didn’t have the capacity from an infrastructure standpoint to
do it. I asked how many schools can we do it in. It was a back
and forth.
Also, I’ve always been a Mac guy, and I was interested in using
MacBook Airs. But as we started the process, Lenny said, “You
have to be more open-minded about this.” He was right. [The
district eventually chose Hewlett-Packard laptops.] If you can’t
create the kind of culture where people are willing to have pretty
tough debates and then come to a consensus, then you’re not
going to be effective in the long run.
Schad:
He’s asked us all to operate this way, and those of
us who have done it have seen no repercussions or felt they were
being put in a penalty box. Dr. Grier doesn’t have time to get into
the details like we should, and part of our job is to be able to give
him a different perspective.
Q: I know the two of you meet, one on one, on a weekly basis. How
important is it that the CTO be at the executive level with direct access
to the superintendent?
Grier:
When I came here, technology was a director-level
position, and that person reported to the chief financial officer. I
elevated that position to CTO and moved the salary up. Thinking
that information technology is not a key, integral part of everything
you do is shortsighted.
One of my questions during the interview process was whether
people had a preference to report to the superintendent or the
chief financial officer. Anyone who said it was preferable to report
to the CFO was immediately eliminated from the pool.
Schad:
I think my answer was that I would only take the
position if I was reporting to the superintendent. That’s how important
it is to me. Technology is pervasive in every part of the
organization. In some form or fashion, it’s touching every piece
of the business. What a good CIO or CTO brings to the table is that
integration concept. No matter what the conversation is, I should
be able to have input.
Houston Superintendent Terry B.
Grier, left, and Chief Information
Technology Officer Lenny Schad have
learned important lessons about how
to work together to use technology to
improve schools.
David Z Einsel/Houston Independent School District
http://www.edweek.org/go/digitaldistrict-report
Education Week - Managing the Digital District - October 2, 2013

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