One of the first tasks facing Adam Galvan when he took on the mantle of Chief Technology Officer at Aldine ISD in Texas was to do a little forensic accounting of former deals and plans expected to be implemented under his guidance.
“The first thing I had to do was go to the board and cancel two projects for $13 million because they were done wrong,” says Galvan. “Wow. My first step is to go to the board who doesn't know me and tell them we need to cancel these massive projects.”
Starting off through a trust exercise with an unfamiliar board governing an 81-campus district isn’t for the faint of heart, but Galvan knew he had to do right by his students.
“I had to explain to them what I could do with that same amount of money,” he says. “One project in question was intended to solely benefit the high schools, but I knew I could do it district-wide for half the money. I had to explain everything and build that trust. Then I gathered all my team members and explained, 'We are no longer silos.'”
Bringing everyone to the table to improve tech offerings and make the most of every budget dollar is no small feat in a district with nearly 9,000 employees, roughly 4,000 of those being educators, serving 48,600 students across an 111-mile swath of Texas.
“I explained, “We will all sit at the table together,’” says Galvan. “We all discuss the plan, then we look at everything and make decisions together. Now what do you need?' After that it was like an avalanche of projects and things that have been pending that they could never get done.”
So Galvan got to work.
“My budget originally was $17 million, which I have cut down to $7 million,” says Galvan. “I've always believed in stretching the dollar. Before I arrived, they contracted everything out. I went to the board and said, ‘Look, I found $3.6 million. I need 22 new positions to keep us from contracting. We'll do all the work ourselves.’”
That’s just what Galvan did. His department grew from 62 people to 115 after taking over the DLS digital learning team.
“We built a team that could do everything ourselves,” he says. “That's helped us get more out of our projects and still bank money for down the road. It's a lot of fun bringing everyone together and knowing that because of that we have the technology to do compelling things.”
The final piece of the communication win came as Galvan distinguished the district as the first in Texas to launch corporate-style live-chat IT support for immediate classroom assistance, using his expansive team to cover bases throughout the district in a flash.
For this and other work, such as pioneering generative AI to help boost teacher efficiency by 30%, modernizing learning for 10,000 employees, deploying 30,000 touchscreen devices to increase tech-driven instruction by 40% and assessment scores by 15%, Galvan was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award.
Galvan shares his experiences tackling big challenges in a big district, as well as tips on how to use tech to improve performance.
Data Saves Dollars
Another part of smart leading is knowing your students, school campuses, and which tech tools are actually being used. Being able to both capture and analyze the data is key.
“We pull data into Google Looker Studio dashboards and we're able to see usage,” Galvan says. “I can talk to a leader who bought a district-wide license, but I can see only a single campus using it. Conversely I can see at a glance that 12 schools already have a license for a certain product, with another attempting to purchase a license and realize we could opt for a district-wide license and save a lot of money. We help make the most of what we have and make smarter decisions on what we need.”
Galvan flipped the process, making all district software purchases first flow through the technology department before buying. If this sounds like a lot of paperwork, trees everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief.
“It's all online,” says Galvan. ”My former district used 200 forms. We created all those forms as digital. No more paper! It helps to streamline the process; you know at a glance when someone's waiting for approval.”
With current trends forcing a rethinking of tech use in schools, using a tool such as Google Looker also helps track screen time and usage.
“We can easily show usage to a superintendent,” says Galvan. “It shows data for software we explained students need to be using for 30 minutes a week to be effective, but aren’t. It shows principals what is going on with their campuses, teachers and in their classrooms. Are students spending time on YouTube or unauthorized software? Who bought that software without getting it approved? It has saved a tremendous amount of money.”
Game On! Bruise-Free Virtual Dodgeball
To help fight declining enrollment numbers that dropped by nearly 15,000, reducing the district’s 81 campuses to the current 69, the innovative CTO upped the excitement factor in tech offerings by bringing in esports. To accommodate elementary students and to prep for future participation, Galvan’s team created Texas’ first VR HADO tournament system, offering onsite games hosted within the school campuses.
“We use HADO to have virtual dodgeball tournaments,” says Galvan. “We get staff involved and the students love it. You're out there competing. You’re still sweating, you’re still having a good time but it's all virtual dodgeball, very safe and much easier to clean up!”
In the district’s second year of the esports program, 768 Active Club Students participate across 26 campuses. The district hosted 13 events: 11 regular season tournaments, 1 District Championship, and 1 State Championship. Double the students qualified at the highest level in year two, with 21 students competing at the TEXSEF State Championship and taking home four titles.
“This past year our students were actually on the main stage competing,” says Galvan. “To have your students on the main screen representing Aldine ISD at a state event was really cool. We have parents who say, ‘Thank you so much, our kids didn’t talk to anybody, now they have friends.’ Now they're playing with kids from other high schools in our district, working together and practicing after school.”
Kids who parents struggled with to attend school were rushing their parents for rides on days they had events and practices. The camaraderie wasn’t the only reward of the experience.
“We had some money left over from the grant, so we took all the kids to go see Super Mario Brothers,” says Galvan. “This might not seem like a huge deal, but we heard feedback that almost 50% of the kids had never gone to the movies before. It just establishes where we're at and what we have to offer that our students didn't have before.”
4 Ways to Use Tech to Improve Outcomes
- “For special education, parents and staff expressed concern with language barriers,” Galvan says. “We tested devices that go into the student and teacher’s ear. If the student has a question, they can click the button on their headset to ding in the teacher's earpiece. The teacher would hear their question translated in English, and be able answer back in their language.”
- “For the administration, we used a translation device loaded onto old district iPhones that shows everything being said back and forth,” he says. “This allowed school secretaries to communicate with parents in different languages, keeping more kids in school.”
- “We realized our assessment scores were dragged down by students unable to understand what was going on, who would just sit there and wouldn't take the test because they didn't know how to,” Galvan says. “We doubled our wireless bandwidth district-wide. The faster and reliable connectivity for translation helpers was assisted by access points in every classroom.”
- Galvan deployed 30,000 touchscreen devices. “We use ClassLink, which is so much easier for students to roster them quickly,” he says. “When a student logs on, they can just go to one page and see every link to the software they need to access. Our scores moved up because we didn't have downtime and frustration.”
Tools They Use
- Hado
- Extreme Networks
- Solarwinds Orion
- Lightspeed Systems
- Award Cybersecurity Pilot Program
- Crowdstrike
- Cisco Umbrella
- Manage Methods
- Abnormal Email Security
- Automax
- Viewsonic Interactive Board
- Chromebooks
- Teacher HP laptops
- Apple iPads and iMacs
- Laserfiche
- Tawk.to software
- Google Looker Dashboards
- Classlink - Launchpad App
- Eduhero
- Identity Automation Rapid Identity
- Incident IQ
- JAMF - MDM for iPads
- Video Insight Security Cameras
- Access control doors - Genetec
- Aiphone - video intercom
- Wahsega PA System
- Centegix Alert System
- Garrett Metal Detectors and handheld wands
- Magicschool AI
- Google Gemini and Notebook
- Panorama Solar for Texas SPED
- Claude AI
