BIBB COUNTY, Ga. — It takes a lot to get a school district of more than 20,000 students learning online, but the tech team for Bibb County Schools did just that.
"Everybody was going to go home now. Internet was going to be a thing. Bandwidth was going to be an issue, support was going to be an issue. Making sure kids have hot spots and internet connections, these are all things we had to think about," said Greg Hogan.
He's the network security coordinator for the school district, so he's the one who receives calls when things aren't going so great.
"You're not just talking to a media specialist at a school or a principal or a teacher that needs help. You're talking to moms and dads, now you're talking to students," said Hogan.
While teachers see their students and vice-versa, there's a small army of people you don't see -- the computer technicians keeping everyone connected.
"When technology is working, no one calls and says, 'Hey great job technology is working,'" Hogan said. "We have first graders call in. We've had grandmas and granddads call in for support."
He has 20 years of tech support saved to his career hard drive, including four years with Bibb County Schools and now almost one full year of supporting e-learning during a pandemic.
"My job is to make sure all the content and the internet data that's coming in is safe. From emails to web browsing to documents that are being shared," he said.
He says it was a scramble when they found out everyone would be moving over to remote learning, but Hogan and the rest of the tech team had a head start.
"Even before COVID we were building a foundation for e-learning already, not knowing we were going to jump into it so fast," he said.
Hogan and the almost 20 person tech team have more than 20,000 students, up to 4,000 staff and more than 30,000 devices they have to keep connected.
"In e-learning, all those devices go home, so they still have to be managed. That's where the challenge comes in since COVID. It's turned our world upside down since March," he said.
It stayed upside down through the summer when they had to plan and troubleshoot for the start of the new school year.
From programming 14,000 new computers to setting up multiple help lines to take calls, he says it hasn't been easy.
"We have struggled, don't get me wrong, Bibb County has struggled too. We've pushed through and over came huge obstacles," Hogan said.
Despite all of the unforeseen challenges, he says the assignment of a lifetime has been very rewarding.
"You're really developing these kids to go out into the world to do everything and there's no limits to what they can do and in a way, technology has a hand in all of it," he said.
Bibb County students are set to return to face-to-face learning on February 18.
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