How to advance within K-12?
Hoping I can get some additional opinions on what I should do about my current situation. I started working for a small but rapidly growing school district last year. Started being the single L2 desktop technician for 3 elementary schools. About 3 weeks after the school year started, I was instead tasked with a high school and smaller buildings: transportation, day care, maintenance, DAEP, special services, alternative schools with students who needed more attention and/or had discipline issues. Why did this happen? Well the former tech who had that high school ended up quitting about 3 weeks into the school year. 😞
Now, I was initially opposed to the change as I had already gotten comfortable with the elementary schools. But it wasn't like I was given much of a choice. The high school was obviously much more of a challenge with so many more classrooms that needed attention. I inherited about a 45 ticket backlog from the high school alone. The other buildings are and have been very low maintenance.
Now all is well, I've kept the ticket count at <5 for approximately 6 months now and I'm at my 1 year mark. I have autonomy, no phone to answer, a private MDF closet I can focus in without interruptions, staff and teachers who show me high volumes of appreciation and respect, and my bosses don't micromanage me. The team I feel now is pretty strong, and the leadership is also great. I believe they are taking the district in the correct direction.
About 4 months ago, after I've had the ticket count under control for a while and felt much more confident in my abilities to maintain the campuses I've been assigned. I expressed interest to my manager and the IT director that I feel ready for more responsibility and if I newer role opened up, that I'd be interested. I was hoping for something like SOC analyst, sysadmin, junior network tech, etc... Something more infrastructure related to earn more money. The director responded and said I should start talking to one of our sysadmins.. great. I have gotten along well with this sysadmin and he has been forthcoming about future plans for the district. I am primarily working with him on optimization of Windows 11 installs. We are using Intune now, which is something I have zero experience with although I've watched some tutorials online about it and am confident I could understand it if given access.
Culture is healthy, but feel like I'm not being utilized properly. I have used my new found downtime to skill up and automate some of my more repetitive tasks. I added Security+ and CySA+ certs to my portfolio. I am starting to feel like there's a ceiling here and that they are happy with keeping me as the tech who keeps a high school under control. This wouldn't be a problem if they'd simply pay me more. Like I said, I enjoy supporting the staff I've been assigned to.
I've just been putting my head down and grinding since bringing it up but don't feel confident that anything will change at this point unless someone happens to retire. What would you advise?