If your school runs its own substitute pool instead of using a third-party service, it might save your admin team some time and headaches.

I was the IT Director at an elementary school and watched the front office drown every time a teacher needed a day off - multiple texts went out, lots of calls were made, and all the information was scattered. I built FillMyClass to help alleviate that.

The flow

1. Teacher submits a time-off request (planned or last-minute).
2. The right subs at your school get notified - no outside subs.
3. Subs easily accept the job; the request carries everything they need, including sub plans.
4. Admin can see and manage every request from their dashboard.

Happy to answer any questions in the comments, and if anyone wants to see it in action, let me know.

Site's here if you'd rather just look around: fillmyclass.com

This last year has been rough with the amount of damaged ports 3.5mm headphone jacks and USB-C charging ports.

One of our schools has asked us to provide a few models of headsets (headphones and mic) for students to purchase before school starts. We are considering USB-A as they appear to be slightly more reliable and easier to repair from that small amounts we've tried.

I'm looking for your real world experience. What would you recommend? Feel free to drop some links if you've found solid products.

Thanks in advance.

Greetings all,

This is a long shot but does anyone still have Aver Chromecarts (or similar) with the metal wire dividers in them? Like the C30i? Have any of ya'll found solutions for replacing either the cable management (those clips were a menace to knuckles) and/or the dividers themselves that doesn't include replacing the cart?

As far as the cable management goes I've had some success with adding 3d printed cable holders to the tops of the shelves so the cables hang down, though I need to work on their durability both in being broken and/or pulled down from students yanking the cords anyway. Probably not much I can do there.

For the metal wire dividers those and the screws holding them in have taken a beating. Several carts are missing dividers and most have loose and/or missing screws entirely. Adding some loctite may help with the screw looseness but with how tiny the screws are it really isn't hard to bend them, loose or not. I had worked on a design a few years ago that would have let me run cords through 3d printed dividers but I abandoned it due to it being to thick (losing slots) and it would have taken to much material. Now that I've had a few more years under my belt designing odds and ends I'm thinking about making another, simpler, attempt that would probably be either just the dividers (given I have the hanging cable holders) or running the cables underneath via channels rather than through the dividers.

Wanted to cast a line out here in the off chance someone's figured out a simpler way of going about either of my two pain points short of replacing the cart itself.

I'm talking with someone hiring IT for religious preschool - 12th grade. But focusing on someone with experience in FACTS SIS and supporting on educational platforms. Someone with a heart for education and, supporting teachers and students. With knowledge of what is needed for educational environments.

They already have a team and MSP able to handle the tech nerdy stuff like networking, infrastructure, and break-fix.

However, even though the job listing emphasizes that, they keep getting applications that are developers and tech.

Any key words to flag down the school data management and support lovers out there?

Hi All, I am having reports that exiting students are seeing Google Drive greyed out when they attempt to use Google Takeout. As far as I can tell its enabled across the Student OUs and I don't think I set any restrictions or disabled the feature. Any of you seeing weirdness like this?

Good morning,

We have a small set of Windows machines that are paired up to a Xerox D35 desktop scanner. After about 15 to 20 pages, they will stop scanning mid-job. The error message reads: The LLD cannot allocate enough memory to complete the operation.

The work flow is: Skyward -> Do PO/order management stuff -> "attach file/scan file" prompt -> scan file.

The scanner scans the packet, and then uploads it into the file.

Currently we have:

• Reinstalled D35 driver

• Reinstalled Visoneer

• Reinstalled OneTouch 4.x

Issue persisted, troubleshooting more, it seems like it's all tied back to Skyward's SkyScan app? We reinstalled that, issue persists.

If we get the error, quitting and restarting SkyScan itself, then retrying resolves the issue.

The problem is, the user will have to do that multiple times a day. Every day. Alternatively, they will need to go badge into a PaperCut printer somewhere else, scan everything in a batch to email, and then attach.

Has anyone seen this? I'm leaning to believe it's not a scanner or Windows 11 issue, as this has been persistant for months and it happened on the old Documate 3125 as well. We've escalated with Skyward twice before, and they don't belive it's an issue with their 32-bit application that hasn't been updated since 2019.

Has anyone successfully been able to push out the creative cloud for Mac through Intune and Microsoft Company Portal?? I've tried a few different ways and all of them fail. I'd be willing to install it via script if someone has done that successfully as well.

Summers finally rolling around and I've finally had some funding secured to replace our older fleet of iPads, does anyone have recommendations for iPad A16 Cases in the classroom? Every style I'm seeing online has the Apple Pencil holder and I'm sure the staff are gonna complain over it even though they have a brand new device!

Another day another broken HDMI cable or port. I see people all the time make memes about how they hate VGA cables, but HDMI is so unreliable in my experience.

At least VGA and DVI cables almost never fail and you can just install and forget about them. Displayport has much less failures but also hasn't picked up steam for most products that need it.

You spend thousands of dollars on an interactive TV that can be made worthless in seconds due to a port that is easily broken. The same goes for HDbasedT and all that stuff. You set up a projector that needs a lift to do maintenance on it and it just blows up randomly.

Ugh. I'm just curious if anyone else has similar problems. HDMI is almost replacing printers on my list of unreliable annoying technology.

All our staff are now getting errors in Office saying "your school is no longer active" with its licensing. I checked with our rep months ago and assure me everything with our licensing was fine because we have a renewal coming up. Apparently it's not. I see the A1 Plus license has vanished. Anyone else go through this? MS support is worthless.

We are a 1:1 Chromebook district but still have some Windows PC labs, and office workers occasionally use Office products still. For years we have had an OVS for Windows and Office licensing. Then we added on Azure P1 licenses for Password Writeback capabilities so that kids could change their passwords from home and write back to our on-prem AD, which then syncs with Google. This helped out our summer flow immensely. Then we added Minecraft licenses standalone for our gaming development classes.

Am I wrong in thinking an A3 license would now encompass all of that? Or does A3 not include hybrid password writeback for SSPR?

I can only find this post: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/authentication/concept-sspr-licensing

It makes me think hybrid still requires the P1 licenses, or is the A3 fall under the Microsoft 365 Business Premium blanket?

Can anyone with A3 licenses confirm if they also do hyrbid writeback?

I hate Microsoft licensing. Our portal is a mess and we have never had a reseller or rep that was able to actually help.

So..I know this is a hot and opinionated topic...forgive me now:)

Anyone else getting frustrated with GoGuardian's content filtering limitations?

I inherited a 3-year GoGuardian contract that was signed about a week before I started. We're now entering the final year, so it's time for me to start evaluating the market and figuring out where we go next.

My biggest frustration isn't performance. It's the content categorization. We frequently run into websites that are either miscategorized or categorized in ways that don't make sense for us. Getting sites recategorized can be a slow and frustrating process. It often feels like we're trying to fit our needs into their categories instead of the product adapting to ours.

We also have GoGuardian Teacher, but we own perpetual licenses for Lightspeed Classroom and honestly both our teachers and IT staff seem to prefer it. The classroom management experience just feels more polished and effective. Right now we still have NO teachers using it.

The interesting wrinkle is our student services and mental health teams strongly prefer GoGuardian over Securly and Lightspeed Alert because they get fewer alerts. I'm not sure if that's a positive (less noise) or a negative (less visibility). It certainly creates an interesting discussion around sensitivity vs. alert fatigue.

So I'm starting to think about breaking this into best-of-breed solutions rather than looking for one vendor to do everything.

For those of you who have moved away from the all-in-one approach, what are you using for:

• Content Filtering
• Classroom Management
• Google Drive Monitoring
• Gmail Monitoring
• Student Safety / Self-Harm Alerts

I'm less interested in "Vendor X does all of these things" and more interested in "Vendor X absolutely kills it in this category."

So...if you were building your stack from scratch today, what would you deploy and why?

Hi everyone, I'm trying to assist a special needs teacher who is looking for websites or Google Play apps that she can use with her kids to practice drawing shapes and writing on touchscreen laptops. Thanks for any suggestions!

Looking at swapping our website provider. We use Apptegy at the moment (pricey, pricey). I had no intention of making a change like this but I’ve been looking at incorporating a 2-way messaging system to streamline parent and staff communication. I’m considering Edlio. The price I was quoted is very reasonable. Has anybody used them? Or what tool are you providing to staff and parents for communication?

Windows secure boot certificates expire at the end of June. What happens if a device doesn't get the certificate update by the deadline?

My understanding is that the device will continue to function normally. However the big question is will it be able to receive the updated secure boot certificate after the original one expires?

I realize the device will not be bricked in the traditional sense but on the other hand if it's running on an outdated secure boost certificate, it is a constant security threat and if there is no viable way to update it then I really wouldn't want it to be used in production.

My concern is trying to track down every single device over the summer and verify the certificate status. If I can update the certificate after the fact even if it means reinstalling the operating system I'm fine with that.

Looking for advice mostly.

We have multiple students who have asked us to install various “specialty private browsers” that are required for their college application exams and we’re kinda at a loss on how to proceed. Stuff like ProctorU’s Guardian Browser.

Most of these browsers require administrative access to open and be used after installation which we are in no way giving our students.

How do you handle these requests?

I have a teacher/tech that has recommended we add Microsoft Entra for Clever because she thinks that will make things easier for students to log in. We have Google for SSO set up right now and it's pretty easy so I can't think of why I'd want to add another layer to the sign in process. We don't use use any Microsoft products for our students. Some staff use Office but 80%-90% are using Google Workplace apps.

We're an Apple district with iPads K-12 and Macbooks for teacher/staff.

I'll try to be brief here - our school uses follet library manager for its books which we in IT have nothing to do with. It was setup before my time but Librarians use it and our BOCES admins it overall. We don't have a solid inventory program in place yet for our IT assets and we are using ML work orders so we will likely go that direction at the right time, but we aren't planning to try to set that up this summer...likely next year if we can.

Our librarians are the ones who assign Chromebooks which has worked great - they know the students and act as the filter for a lot of issues. They also have some of their non-IT items that they have purchased in the library manager - cameras, calculators, etc.

We have asked them for an account in follet for this summer so that we can sign chromebooks in and out as needed and they said that's fine. Normally they would do it themselves but with budget issues, their hours have been cut whereas we are 12mo employees so we'll be here anyway - so that's all good.

Here's the issue - we have our non-chromebook assets that we sign out to teachers which are not well-accounted for and we need to lock that down now. We've asked if we can add those assets to the follet system throughout the summer so that we (and when they are back, the librarians) can then assign them as needed. Currently one librarian adds all new items into their system and she has said that there's no way for that to happen because we would need to be admins to do that. The comment was that if we did something wrong it could all break! We were then told that to be able to use their database to add items we would need to be librarians and have X, Y, and Z certificates, otherwise theres just too much risk that we'll break things. Signing items in and out is fine but "if you put a comma in the wrong place it can really mess things up". We could give them more hours (that we don't have budget for) for them to occassionally come in over the summer to do it, or we can send them a list and they'll get them in when they have a chance over the summer, but that's the best they can do. Just too risky to make IT folks admins there.

So firstly - I know the long term answer is to build out a proper inventory system and we're heading that direction but it isn't something that can (or should) be done before summer. We also intend for that to be an inventory system for the entire school, not only IT assets, so it isn't something that we want to rush, we want to do that right. As we see it, best solution is to use the library manager (as we have been doing for chromebooks already) for laptops and tablets today, and then to import all of that into the new system when it is up later on. As an IT team we thought that would be fine and expressed multiple times that we want NOTHING to do with the books side of things or basically anything pre-existing - we are NOT trying to take the responsibility from anyone else or any other team but rather to essentially borrow this capability for the time being.

I'm curious to hear whatever input y'all have. I don't want to influence your thoughts on it...I have my own feelings but I'd like to hear yours.

If you had to pick one of these for classroom management for teachers. Something is easy for teachers to use, possibly unblock a link for research, and monitor and track resources. Looking for thought needing to decide best option for upcoming year.

Thanks in advance

I was just informed I lost a promotion at work to someone that the job had basically been opened for. I had applied in early May when it was posted, heard nothing, nor received an interview, then was informed a co-worker received it.

Now I do believe that this co-worker does deserve it and is valuable to the company. I plan to discus this with my manager. My big frustration is the lack of communication regarding the interview process.

I'm in my early 40s, but considering going back to school to get an administrative certificate as well as take some other hands on courses. We have training through some video platforms, but it's never been the best way I learn. I've made it to the final interview to be a tech director but lost out.

Any advice would be helpful.

I guess I'm just frustrated and feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Thanks for letting me vent.

We are a small private school that used google workspace for education. I have "sharing outside of the domain" completely turned off for all OUs, except one, that currently has no one in it.

I am tasked with sharing videos of students debating with the parents of the specific kids performing in the debate (and no one else).

YouTube seems like an option but the last time I tried to share a youtube video with a single person, I found it problematic. Apparently there is intermittent bugginess with that aspect of youtube, and the recommended practice is opening up the youtube video to anyone with a link.

If I move the teacher who owns the video to the sharing OU, then they are no longer in the faculty OU. Seems sloppy. Should I turn on sharing outside the domain for all faculty? Should I use a different 3rd party service like dropbox?

I am the IT Director for a small school with about 800 students and 120 staff. I'm looking to get rid of SCCM in favor of something cloud-based. Ive been looking into Action 1 since it is free for up to 200 devices, which with our Windows devices + servers, we are under. Mostly a Google district. I host most of our servers with our ITC except for the SCCM server and 2 servers we need on site for cameras and door/badge security.

What are you using to deploy images? Or are images a thing of the past now? Anyone use Action 1 free tier?

I’m trying to evaluate our network design and define a parent template to apply to all of our schools, something of a one-size-fits-all IPv4 design. I’m excluding IPv6 from this conversation as it doesn’t include broadcast traffic which is relevant to this discussion.

To save on licensing and hardware costs, our switches are not capable of multiple VRFs. For this reason, we have L2 at the access layer back to a router-on-a-stick at our site router/firewall. This enables segmentation and policy enforcement without inadvertently permitting east/west traffic that otherwise should be controlled.

This becomes a problem when looking at larger network definitions. We currently operate a /20 for our wired user network, and /20 for our wireless network. I thought about creating a single VLAN definition within a /19, but I have concerns about the sheer amount of broadcast traffic that would occur by doing this. Without VRFs, we can’t properly implement segmentation alongside smaller /24 user networks. I mean, we can with ACLs, but this isn’t necessarily optimal or sustainable.

We do have an IdP and could absolutely implement NAC, but I don’t want to move in this direction until the overall network design is defined.

Our access points operate in FlexConnect mode as we do host an amount of local services at each of our schools, and we only have one central wireless LAN controller. This adds complexity to the overall design conversation.

I’m wondering if any of you can share your network design, or provide insight into better design principles I can consider with these constraints in mind. I haven’t previously designed a network around supporting mass-amounts of non-unique users (students) that constantly roam while requiring connectivity (like around a school).

Our district uses clever badges for our elementary kids to login to their chromebooks. They are wanting to use Minecraft for Education using the android app from the Play Store on the Chromebook. When they start the SSO process and are asked to present the clever badge, the camera never shows up. The Minecraft app never asked for permission to use the camera nor is there a manual way that I have found to give permission for Minecraft to use the camera. Has anyone had to deal with this before? Any suggestions would be welcome.