Tech Support Associate

LREI (Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School) is looking for a support person who loves to help people, has good interpersonal skills, and an interest in schools and educational technology. This is a role designed for someone early in their career, you don’t need to know our systems on day one. You need to be curious, willing to ask questions, and excited to learn. You should know how to research a problem that you need guidance in approaching. You should be able to “communicate complex ideas/systems/practices to end users concisely and in a manner that meets users where they are,” say things like “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” and be unafraid to ask “Hey, can you explain how that system works again?” You should be comfortable with online collaboration tools that help teams communicate and organize their tasks. We hope you are flexible, self-starting, delighted by learning new things, willing to ask questions, have a positive attitude, and are helpful by nature. The ideal candidate is someone motivated to learn and grow into systems administration responsibilities over time. We offer professional development opportunities and mentorship to support that growth.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Tech Support Associate coordinates day-to-day support of student/faculty/admin tech devices and applications. LREI utilizes a help desk system; the Associate provides the first line of response for hardware, software, database, cloud, and A/V related issues. The Associate will work with our students as well as with adults. In addition to daily support, opportunities exist to learn more complex networking systems, server operating systems, and student information systems. Special projects may include documenting, providing training to faculty and/or staff, and working with student groups.

Day-to-day responsibilities you’ll handle from early on (with support)

• Help faculty, staff, and students take on problems with school-issued software and hardware.

• Coordinate device repair and loaner pool to ensure continuity of user experience.
   
• Supporting and solving problems with classroom A/V hardware, and working with vendors who do installations, repair, and maintenance.

• Tech support for event setups (microphones, audio, video, and limited assistance with lighting) during the day and occasionally on evenings and weekends. We typically expect a handful of evening or weekend events per semester; we offer additional pay and/or schedule flexibility to balance these hours.

• Support the printer fleet and multifunction copy units.

• Misc. help desk requests from our administrative staff.

Areas you’ll grow into with mentorship and training

• Administering student MacBook deployment and maintenance using our Mac management platform, which handles devices and software updates.

• Working within the Google Admin Console to handle user accounts.

• Becoming a go-to support resource for our Student Information System, the Blackbaud ON suite, helping students, teachers, and families with their classes and accounts.

• Working with a small specialized fleet of Windows computers.

• Supporting our makerspace equipment (3D printer, laser cutter, etc.).

• Assisting in planning, and potentially leading, technology-focused workshops.

• Configuring, deploying, and troubleshooting VoIP phones.

• Learning and troubleshooting physical wired network switches and wireless access points in collaboration with the Director of Technology.

• Supporting the needs of the Technology Department and the school administration as is appropriate and necessary.

What you need on day one

• Strong written and verbal communication, with patience and a friendly disposition.

• Genuine curiosity about how technology works, and comfort troubleshooting everyday devices and software.

• Some experience working with young people in a school, camp, tutoring, after-school program, or similar child-centered environment.

• Comfort with online collaboration and ticketing tools, or a clear willingness to learn them quickly.

• Fearlessness in asking questions or researching when approaching a new problem.

We are looking for candidates who are

• Approachable, and have a patient temperament.

• Self-motivated and comfortable working independently or collaboratively.

• Highly organized and able to work on multiple projects and follow tasks through to completion.

• Excellent communicators (verbal and written) who care about clear documentation.

• Interested in staying abreast of new technologies.

• Committed to their ongoing learning.

• Excited to support learners and have a teacher’s disposition and love of young people.

• Engaged in the evolving role of media and technology in education and society.

• Able to work one-on-one to train users on software and hardware.

• Committed to solving problems in an efficient and timely manner.

• Able to re-frame problems to find solutions.

• Tinkerers, makers, and doers.

Bonus if you have (but absolutely not required)

• Prior helpdesk or school IT experience.

• Mac administration experience or familiarity with MDM platforms.

• Basic shell scripting.

• Experience with A/V setups or makerspace equipment.

Duties and Responsibilities for Summer Months

Prepping for the school year. This includes:

• Building/tweaking packages for our client management solution (Apple experience, with some basic shell scripting, is a huge bonus — but something we’re glad to teach).

• Tech spaces re-organizing and cleanup.

• Onboarding new students and faculty (devices, accounts, access cards, etc.).

• Handling equipment unboxing, inventory, and deployment.

• Misc. help desk requests from our administrative staff who work during the summer months.

What we offer

• A genuine mentorship relationship with our entire tech team, including the Director of Technology, and a clear path to grow into systems administration work.

• Professional development support, including budget for relevant certifications and conferences.

• A collaborative, mission-driven team in a school community that values curiosity and learning.

• Benefits for all LREI Employees can be found on our careers website 

Overview of School

Founded in 1921 by Elisabeth Irwin (a contemporary and colleague of John Dewey, Caroline Pratt, and Lucy Sprague Mitchell), The Little Red School House has been at the vanguard of pedagogical innovation since its founding. LREI’s goal is to educate students to become independent thinkers and lifelong learners and to pursue academic excellence and individual achievement, in a context of respect for others and service to the community. We believe that learning should be active and experiential, with the school providing abundant opportunities for students to excel. We accept students with a range of abilities and talents who can take full advantage of a rich and demanding academic program in which each student is both challenged and supported. We seek to create within the school a community built on understanding and respecting others. Thus, our student body traditionally reflects the racial and cultural diversity of our city, and our curriculum is built on interdisciplinary studies to promote understanding of many cultures. While individual achievement is encouraged and rewarded, our program underscores the value of shared goals, friendship, and cooperation in mastering difficult tasks. The progressive ideals that in 1921 gave life and inspiration to the school — academic excellence and creativity, active learning and innovative teaching, respect for the individual and responsibility to the community — continue to guide the school today. LREI is located in vibrant Greenwich Village and classes venture forth often to use the neighborhood and the city to provide rich learning experiences.

Salary Range: $48,000 to $54,000 commensurate with experience.

To apply for this position, refer a colleague to the position, and/or view other open positions at LREI, please visit us at https://www.lrei.org/careers