{"id":102751,"date":"2026-02-26T03:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T06:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/895690510"},"modified":"2026-02-26T03:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T06:12:18","slug":"wood-county-board-of-education-talks-year-round-technology-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/26\/wood-county-board-of-education-talks-year-round-technology-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Wood County Board of Education talks year-round technology support"},"content":{"rendered":"

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(Photo by Douglass Huxley) Jonathan Farley, director of information technology, talked to the Wood County Board of Education Tuesday night about changing seven existing 200-day Technology Support Specialist contracts to seven 210-day TSS positions. <\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

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(Photo by Douglass Huxley) Jonathan Farley, director of information technology, talked to the Wood County Board of Education Tuesday night about changing seven existing 200-day Technology Support Specialist contracts to seven 210-day TSS positions.<\/p>\n

PARKERSBURG \u2014 Jonathan Farley, director of information technology, proposed changes to the Management Information Systems (MIS) Department to the Wood County Board of Education Tuesday night aimed at improving year-round technology support for staff, students and the community.<\/p>\n

Farley outlined a plan to eliminate seven 200-day Technology Support Specialist (TSS) contracts and replace them with seven 210-day TSS contracts. He said this would allow staff to focus on fixing and maintaining technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, since the beginning of the school year, we have closed out just under 5,000 tickets,\u201d Farley said, emphasizing how often teachers rely on technology support in \u201cstressful situations\u201d when classroom tools fail. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very proud of my team, so let that be known,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He also proposed eliminating two 200-day Technology Integration Specialist (TIS) contracts and instead creating two 261-day Coordinator of Organizational Support and Technology Services positions. He said while TSS staff handle repairs, TIS and the new coordinator roles focus on helping teachers and staff integrate technology into instruction and operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to start [the TSS contracts] seven working days before the teacher contract starts,\u201d he said. \u201cThis will allow us to rebuild labs, finish E-Rate projects, [and] get anybody that\u2019s in the building already, teachers ready to go for that first day, whether it\u2019s a printer, their workstation, their MacBook, their iPad, their Apple TV, their ViewSonic.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said as the school year ends, those additional days are intended to handle device collection and classroom changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the rest of the 10 days, I\u2019d like to add those on to the end,\u201d he said. \u201cThat way we could finish the iPad collection process, tearing down of labs, redoing classrooms, because every summer it seems like everybody likes to move. That would give us that time to do all of that\u2026 the adequate time for opening and closing the tech in the schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Board member Ron Tice wanted to make sure the public understood that much of the cost would be covered by federal funds, not the district\u2019s general fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to make sure that the public is aware\u2026 that on these two particular 261-day contracts, 100 days of that will be paid by the federal government,\u201d Tice said. \u201cSo we\u2019re only paying for the 161 (days).\u201d<\/p>\n

The board approved the changes later in the meeting.<\/p>\n

Olivia Reeder, vice president of instructional advancement at West Virginia University of Parkersburg, spoke to the Wood County Board of Education Tuesday night about partnering with the college on its Riverhawk Ready program, which aims to help students with the enrollment process.<\/p>\n

Reeder said the program is designed to remove barriers to college for high school students \u2014 especially first-generation students \u2014 by simplifying the enrollment process and providing early, ongoing support.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are an open enrollment institution, which means anyone can enroll with us. But what we found out is we have a lot of students, particularly first-generation students, who are still hitting barriers because they just don\u2019t understand the process and they have no one at home to help them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said students no longer have to complete a full application to get started. She said they now simply opt in via an online portal connected to their existing high school system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this program, students will simply have to opt in to going to college. There\u2019ll be an online portal that will be accessed through their learning management system\u2026 They go in, submit their name and say that they want to be part of the WVU Parkersburg, the Riverhawk Flock.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said once students opt in, the college takes over the back-end work.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo all they have to do is say, I want to go there. We will help them get through their FAFSA. We will collect their transcripts. We will do all of the back work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reeder said this does not lock students into attending WVUP.<\/p>\n

She said the program is tied to a broader mission: making higher education affordable and building a strong local workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to get as many people into careers in the Mid-Ohio Valley as we can. Because if we have a great, strong workforce, we have a great, strong community,\u201d Reeder said.<\/p>\n

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… Farley, director of information technology<\/span>, proposed changes to the … eliminating two 200-day Technology<\/span> Integration Specialist (TIS) … of Organizational Support and Technology<\/span> Services positions. He said … opening and closing the tech<\/span> in the schools.\u00e2\u0080\u009d Board …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}