Memo to CEO (Superintendent) - Bloomfield Hills School District

My letter will be written to the Superintendent of a school district in the Detroit area near where I grew up (http://www.bloomfield.org/).

There are three reasons for this choice

1) I know this person well and have discussed many of the MS-MBA topics that have come up in the past with him. I think this will be a great way to formalize the discussion and to put in some concrete analysis and implementable recommendations instead of the usual dialogue of "here is something interesting I learned, maybe the school district could use it"

2) Because of these ongoing conversations I know that this district and public school districts in general could benefit greatly from the recent advancements in IT and IS that large companies implement and leverage. Public school districts have limited budgets and the person in charge of IT is in an operational role, not an innovative role. Their job is predominantly to make sure the IT runs.

It is my belief that the benefits of IT innovation are not being utilized in school districts because it is very difficult to quantify the benefits (especially to a school board) when the money could be spent on education.

I will try to use what we are learning in class to demonstrate to the Superintendent that a shift in perspective of the school district's view of technology and IS/IT would be to it's benefit. I will do this by briefly providing implementable affordable recommendations that can begin to change the direction and view of IT in the school district.

3) I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.

Some interesting questions that I think need to be addressed are:

What is the appropriate payback period on IT investment?

To what extent can intangible benefits be measured in order to justify expense?

Is there room for experimentation? -Room, that is, in both in the budget and in stakeholders tolerance.

How can a school district, which is so dependent on community support, communicate the benefits of IT investment to the broader community?