Presented by W. Wesley Watts, Jr., Ed.D., Former Chief Information Officer, Prince George’s County Public Schools (MD); Elvis K. Teah, Director, Information Technology, Infrastructure, Data Center, and Security, Baltimore City Public Schools (MD); and Michael McKerley, President, ENA
Moderated by Dr. Tom Ryan, Co-Founder, K-12 Strategic Technology Advisory Group (K12STAG)

Sponsored by ENA

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Closed captioning will be added to the recording within 2 weeks of the live presentation. Get a CE Certificate for this edLeader Panel Learn more.

Demands on education networks have changed. Between blended learning, online coursework, digital learning applications, and an explosion in connected devices, bandwidth needs for K-12 continue to soar, but IT budgets simply can’t keep up with necessary infrastructure upgrades. How can you adapt your network to this bandwidth-hungry reality without breaking the bank?

In this edLeader Panel, district leaders from Prince George’s County Public Schools and Baltimore City Public Schools discuss this timely topic and outline the successful strategies they have implemented to build future-proof, robust, and secure networks. These experienced technology leaders also share recommendations and best practices other districts can replicate and adopt.

This recorded edLeader Panel is of interest to district leaders and education technology leaders of all grade levels. 

About the Presenters

Dr. W. Wesley Watts, Jr. recently retired after 30 years of service with Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) in Maryland. Dr. Watts was the chief information technology officer for PGCPS, one of the largest school districts in the United States (133,000 students and 18,300 employees), for 18 years. He is a hard-working, passionate educator determined to afford all youth the opportunity of post-K-12 education by providing them with the skills to enter college.

In 2011, Dr. Watts created, designed, and implemented a four-year Information Technology (IT) Academy, enabling students to be career-and-college ready, get an acceptance letter to college, and graduate with a professional IT certification. In 2013, he received the (ASBO) Brice and Shirley Phillips Award for Best Practice.

Most recently, Dr. Watts executed plans during the COVID-19 outbreak to support staff and students at home. This included distributing computing devices to central office staff, distributing over 65,000 computing devices to students over a four-day period, and providing internet access to almost 5,000 families in need.

Elvis K. Teah provides strategic planning, application development, technology implementation services, and integration of technology tools in support of instructional objectives and business needs and provides technology infrastructure and data systems to support student learning, business continuity, budgeting, procurement, contract management, safety and security, business continuity, and E-Rate management.

Michael McKerley joined ENA in 2000 as a systems engineer and has served in a variety of roles at ENA, most recently as Chief Technology Officer. As President, Michael leads ENA’s overall technology solutions portfolio and market strategy. He is proud to have spent most of his career at ENA and he is passionate about bringing scalable, reliable, and useful solutions to community anchor institutions across the nation.

About the Moderator

Tom Ryan, Ph.D. is Co-founder of K-12 Strategic Technology Advisory Group (K12STAG), which is led by public school chief information officers who understand the challenges school leaders face. He is an education professional with 40+ years of K-12 experience. He has a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction and over 16 years as a chief information officer in large districts. He is engaged in leadership activities in several state and national organizations including Chairman of the Board for the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). He is also active in the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) including large school district IT reviews of infrastructure, strategic planning, instructional technology, and digital transformation efforts. He also helps coordinate the CGCS annual CIO conferences. Dr. Ryan is a senior fellow for the Center of Digital Education and presents at several international, national, and state conferences throughout the year.

Closed captioning will be added to the recording within 2 weeks of the live presentation.

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