Heritage’s information and technology specialist, along with the rest of the IT specialists around Rogers schools, are being transferred to different schools at the end of the semester.
Randy Lusk came to Heritage by way of the district technology office in January because of a new initiative to give all IT specialists experience at the high school
level. He replaced Mike Harris, who had been at Heritage since 2019.
“As I understand, they are doing the switch to give everybody
the experience of working in a high school,” Lusk said. “We all come from a background of supporting the districts where we support all of the outside schools, so we have techs in all 3 high schools and the rest of the 8 techs take care of the elementary and middle schools. They are starting to do this rotation so everyone can gain experience at a high school.”
The switch coming in the middle of the school has dismayed Heritage staff and students who have built strong relationships with Lusk.
“He’s my friend,” said Travis Epps (10). “He’s a nice guy; I will miss him.”
Epps visits the IT office in the library regularly, where he discusses computers and motors with Lusk.
Melodi Erkul, Epps’ teacher, has noticed the time and effort that Lusk has taken and appreciates his investment in students.
“Sometimes when the bell rings, [Travis] will ask if he can go to the library [just to visit Randy],” she said.
The library staff are not concerned about a decrease in the efficiency of the library or technology office, because they know that the district tech office is full of qualified IT specialists.
“I don’t think it will affect us that much. It might just take him [the new IT specialist] a while to get to know how Heritage works,” Elizabeth Ragain-Orta said. “We will see him, it’s not like he’s [fully] leaving Heritage, but we will miss him.”
The mid-school year switch is not without reason, though. Debbie Skinner, chief information office for the Rogers Public Schools technology office, shared that sticking to the calendar year instead of the academic year suits the technology department workflow.
“December is probably one of the slowest times of the technology year,” Skinner said. “For students, it may be that summer is the end of the year and a time for change, but for technology, summer is very busy. In December, most classrooms are running smoothly and members of the Tech team have time to catch up, put their workspace in order and prepare for the year after the break.”
Lusk will return to the district technology office in January, but his duties will still require him to come to Heritage from time to time. For that, he’s grateful, because he has strong relationships here.
“Probably the most important part I’ve enjoyed about it is building the relationship with admin and all the teachers and even some of the students,” he said.
