IT departments for K-12 school districts can use three statements to ensure that the IT staff — and school district stakeholders — understand what the IT department is all about. Simply put, these goals are to provide solutions, to make the solutions work, and to maintain the technology momentum.

The mission of the IT department in a K-12 school district can be broken down as follows:

• Partner with other school district departments to deploy technology solutions based on business requirements established by those departments.
• Support the solutions by maintaining the software, hardware and infrastructure.
• Maintain the technology momentum by working with business units to continually improve the technology solution and address changing business needs.

CIOs in K-12 education should:

• Establish simple goals that set a customer service, business-aligned tone for the IT department
• Ensure that the entire IT staff understands and takes ownership of the mission/goals
• Communicate the mission/goal statement with stakeholders by word and by deed

Most IT departments in K-12 education have a mission statement and/or goals that are displayed throughout the department and that are often published throughout the school district. It is common, for example, to see a wall poster declaring that IT will be "world class" or the "leading" department of technology in the nation. Those are seemingly worthy goals — if they can be defined for staff and stakeholders in a meaningful way. Gartner advises technology leaders in K-12 education to forgo such lofty (and somewhat pretentious) platitudes in favor of three simple statements that make it clear what IT in the school district intends to do.

1. Partner with other school district departments to deploy technology solutions based on their business requirements and school district priorities.

School district IT departments should put the technology solutions in place that apply the business rules defined by the departments that own that area of effort in the district. In the case of curriculum and instruction (the school district's most visible and most important line of business), pedagogical and content-area experts define what should be taught and how. IT partners with those experts in the selection of hardware, software and infrastructure that deliver the desired learning activities to students. In the partnership, IT has the most influence on the technical side (that is, adherence to enterprise technology standards) and little or nothing to do with establishing learning goals and objectives (see Note 1).

Similar examples can be found in the relationship with other business units, and the nature of the relationship between IT and the business units/customers is further illustrated in Figure 1. The key point is that providing solutions is a goal that is simple and understandable — one that can be effectively communicated to staff and stakeholders.

2. Support the solutions by maintaining the software, hardware and infrastructure.

Once a solution is in place, it remains the responsibility of the IT department to keep it up and running. That includes ensuring that end-user devices (for example, desktop computers) are properly configured and, perhaps, repaired. For administrative or managerial software solutions, it may mean testing and installing required updates, analyzing data storage requirements, and if necessary, adding resources in response to the need.

IT staffers should see part of their core mission as making sure the solutions work. In this regard, they should consider themselves to be a customer service organization.

3. Maintain the technology momentum by working with business units to continually improve the technology solution and address changing business needs.

The third simple goal reminds the IT staff — and the rest of the school district — to stay on top of ever-changing technology, as well as changes in business requirements. By working with business unit partners and staying abreast of the evolving technologies, IT has the opportunity to provide a continuously improving technical and business environment (including instruction).

The department of technology in a K-12 school district should understand that working with other business units to provide technology solutions to their business needs and making those solutions work create momentum toward newer and even better technology-based solutions to the challenges of K-12 education. Maintaining the technology momentum creates a sense of mission that reminds staff to constantly look for improvements and innovation and to be prepared to incorporate them when working with their business unit partners.

Remembering the mission statement and goals is important for maintaining focus on what the IT department, specifically, and the school district, in general, value most. Gartner's three simple goals are ideal for K-12 districts that:

• Value IT solutions that address business needs and requirements
• See IT as having a strong customer service role
• Have a continuous improvement mind-set for applying technology to the challenges of education