Student Techs: Say What Now?!

Back in 1999 I was part of a pilot program for something similar to this my senior year in high school. It was myself and another student where were enrolled in the 2nd level of a 'computer maintenance' course. The first course was really just an A+ and Network+ like prep-course. We mostly had donated equipment that was in an unknown state at the start of the year and as we learned things we fixed them and built networks. The second year we worked for the school 8-5 during the summer prepping the campuses for the next year and then during the year we worked two periods a day assisting the full time technician. It was mostly fixing projectors and printers with some basic troubleshooting. We were paid $6.50/hr and had keys to exterior doors and rooms, just not administrative offices.

I was part of "Tech Crew" for my high school. It was a "student run" organization mentored by the adult full time IT Staff. It was a big part of why I received a full ride scholarship to an engineering school - as far as incentivizing the program goes. My answers to your questions are below...

How many students participate? When I was there, it was ~30 students. High school of 2500 students.

How much and what kind of training time do you provide? The students trained each other, after the program got off of the ground. If I recall, it was 1-2 weeks of after school training on basic hardware, software, etc. From there, there was a ranking system... Level 1-3, and each level had an S,T and A. S = Shadow - you shadow the other people in your level to learn the ins and outs and of the technical work you're involved in. T = Tech, you're the brains of the operations as far as solving problems go and getting tickets done. A = Admin. You're the one who's got the soft skills and leadership skills to be a "job boss" to manage the ticket queue, manage training, attend meetings to make decisions on behalf of the student crew. The levels really just involve whatever level of skill in technology people are at. 1 would be answering phones and basic fixes like password resets, hardware replacement. 2 would be troubleshooting printing problems, app errors, etc. 3 would be anything more advanced - image management, policies, etc.

What is the student’s incentive or compensation if any? No compensation during the school year in our case. Techs would help after school and if they had a study hall, it was agreed w/the school board that the techs could spend their study hall working for tech crew instead of being in study hall. During the summer, depending on budget, there would be a select number of paid positions (generally in the minimum wage range or slightly above) offered up to the students based on their rank. Also a couple of "unpaid" positions were generally available for students who were entering high school if they wanted to get a foot in the door for the program. Once the program had been up and running for a few years, an alumni program was started where a scholarship fund began. I still contribute to it now, over a decade later. We are also all invited to come to parties (pot luck type events or pizza parties where video games and other things (like "capture the mouse") were also played.). Often the alumni speak to how tech crew helped them get a leg up in life/college/career.

What are they trusted with…do they have passwords, IDs, unsupervised hardware areas? With our leveling system, it was an increasing level of access. They of course never had any access to systems that had to do with grading, etc. but they had administrative passwords to do the things that most IT Support techs would need to do. Starting at Level 2A+ they would also have keys to storage rooms, etc. It is a matter of requiring a student to put in the time required for 1) you to have enough interaction to know if they can be trusted and 2) the student putting in enough time and effort that they wouldn't want to abuse any privileges. They were also trusted to manage themselves, for the most part, of course always with adult supervision and direction. But ultimately when it came to someone performing poorly or breaking rules, it was a group decision between all of the "Admin" designated staff to determine whether the person would be booted from the program, for example.

Do you use a help desk model? Software? This was some time ago, so no models that are really know of today or software really (it was a novell shop for example). I do think that the progressive structure of leveling was a helpful thing to keep students interested and to give them something to work toward. If it's just the same old crap every day, why would they want to do it? It's designed to have the younger kids in the beginner levels with the older kids mentoring the younger ones.

If it's not a class and more casual, is the time spent in study hall or are there additional expectations? Study hall and after school, I think it was about 2 hours after school, depending on FTE staff availability.

Is there a written curriculum that they follow and is it aligned to state standards? There was a loose definition of what was taught at each level (the entry level and test was pretty explicit and modeled A+ hardware type of test questions). It was a completely non-credit extracurricular, however. Treated more like an alternative to sports or debate club, for example.

What grade levels participate? Grades 9-12

Who manages the student technicians? FTE IT support Stuff, Director/CIO, etc.

Do they help with distributions and hand ins? Yes. Most large scale projects were effectively student run, lease refreshes, etc.

What are they trusted with? Anything more than non-tech students? Yes, they assisted teachers with technical issues, computer setup, etc. The highest level techs were basically able to take care of things that didn't involve any access to grading systems or sensitive info. This included building and managing servers, etc. You don't have to use your techs to just handle support calls - they can handle some engineering/server admin work, too. From what I know, there was never any data breach.

How did you pick students, interview process, etc.? There was an interview process conducted by the highest level student participants and the FTE IT staff. These interviews were conducted upon request of the students who asked to participate in the program. In the early stages of the program, students who showed technical ability were sought out to help start the program.

I'd be more than happy to share more info on my experience. From a technical perspective, not a lot is relevant, but process wise I definitely think it is. Also happy to put you in touch with some of the full time staff who managed the students. One of them was at JNUC this year, interestingly enough!

Thanks for your posts and information, that's exactly what I'm looking for! We had a great turnout for the resurrected session at JNUC. I recorded the audio and I'm in the process of working up a review of the session. I collected most of the attendees email addresses, if I did not get yours and would like to be included in the email thread that follows, please send me an email at: dan_pusateri at eastiron.monroe.edu

P.S. @ndeal Yes! Please email me information for the staff that manages the students. Thanks again for all the info...