From student laptops, teacher workstations, electronic testing, and more, technology plays an important role in your school’s daily operations.
With that technology comes the need for someone to support it, but managing your school’s IT environment is a big job.
Whoever assumes this responsibility will assume many responsibilities, including:
- Tracking IT inventory
- Planning for hardware refreshes
- Handle security policies and administer security solutions
- Administer LANs and networks
- Knowledge on how to track inventory
- Maintain user accounts,
- Plan for testing needs
This high-demand job often leads to a high turnover rate. It’s not uncommon for schools to repeatedly be searching, hiring, and retaining an IT director.
Working with both K-12 schools (public and private) and colleges, The KR Group has witnessed first-hand how seriously schools like yours take technology and the person who manages it.
And we’ve heard how frustrated many schools are with always having to figure out how to handle IT administration. The good news is an internal IT department isn’t your only option for IT support.
IT Options for Educational Institutions
There are three different types of IT support:
- An internal IT department is part of your organization. However, knowledgeable IT engineers or managers are difficult and expensive to recruit.
- Managed IT services are an outsourced IT solution. This is frequently the best option from a budgetary standpoint, but you lose some of the hands-on service of an internal department.
- Co-managed IT services are a combination of an internal IT department and managed IT services solution. You can divvy up responsibilities between the two support systems.
Each of these options has its pros and cons. After reading this article, you will have the information you need to make an informed decision on what is right for your school district.
Pros and Cons of Internal IT Departments
As you read in the bullet points above, a significant difficulty with relying on an internal IT department is staff for the position is hard to recruit and retain.
However, this doesn’t mean there are no advantages to this option.
Once you do recruit the right candidate for your internal IT team, you have control over their responsibilities. In real-time, this looks like setting on-site hours, determining when issues are resolved in-person or remotely, and what solutions are deployed.
If you’re able to cope or find a way around the cons to an internal IT department, then this option can work well.
Pros and Cons of Managed IT Services
Instead of hiring internal IT managers and/or engineers, you can outsource the responsibilities of your IT environment to a managed IT service provider (MSP).
The pros to this option are you no longer have to worry about recruiting, hiring, and retaining the IT staff member. Your MSP has their own staff of engineers that your contract entitles you to. If one of these engineers finds other employment, your MSP handles the recruitment and hiring process.
Additionally, managed services engineers have knowledge and experience with educational technology needs. You don’t have to worry about the engineer not having the skills to handle the demands of your IT environment.
Of course, this option has its cons as well.
The most frequent pain point for schools using managed IT services is the shift away from frequent hands-on assistance from an internal engineer.
Your MSP will send an engineer for recurring appointments and whenever there is a hardware issue. However, an MSP addresses the majority of IT problems remotely.
To work with schools who are uneasy about this arrangement, a reputable MSP will ease you into relying on remote support for the majority of your problems. At the beginning of your contract, an engineer can make frequent trips on-site to transition you into managed IT services.
Pros and Cons of Co-managed IT Services
Another option to provide more on-site support is to opt for co-managed IT services.
With this option, you’ll have access to the knowledge and experience of an MSP, but the hands-on support from an internal engineer.
Generally, schools rely on their MSP for the more technical aspects of managing their IT environment and their internal engineer(s) for the daily operational. This isn’t a hard a fast rule, and you can work with your MSP to divvy up responsibilities however works for your school.
On paper, a co-managed IT services option makes the most sense for educational institutions. However, the biggest con is it can be expensive to contract with an MSP and pay an internal engineer or two.
Finding the Right IT Solution for You
When you look at the different IT support options and their respective pros and cons, you should start to get an idea of what would work best for your school.
- If you’re looking for a knowledgeable, hands-on IT manager and willing to go through the recruiting and hiring process, an internal IT employee or department will work for you.
- On the other hand, if you want to forego the hassle of recruiting and retaining an internal employee, contracting with an MSP gives you access to engineers with the knowledge and skills you need. They likely won’t be as hands-on, though.
- And, if you’re looking for a support option that includes a knowledgeable, external resource and internal, hands-on engineers, co-managed IT services are the solution you’re looking for. However, your IT costs may reflect this.
For more help finding the perfect IT solution, download our quick guide. It reviews the different options to guide you to the best fit for your school.
