Databus Issue: 2005 1 02/07/2005
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE The Challenges of 2004!
Terrell Tucker CETPA President
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Another year has finally come to a close, marking the passage of CETPA’s 44th year! Although 2004 proved at times challenging, it also yielded many success stories for technology in California’s K-12 schools.
Many districts spent the year trying to balance tight budgets and avoid yet another year of deficit spending. The E-rate process for telecommunications and technology reimbursement continues to occupy a great deal of our time with many new rules being implemented. We, as technologists, are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with demands for new technology and better integration into our classrooms.
In spite of the problems 2004 threw our way, we ended the year with the most successful annual conference in CETPA history. Conference attendance hit an all-time high and technology vendors throughout North America showed up in record numbers, indicating their confidence in renewed educational funding at the state level. The year also saw the transfer of the Digital California Project (DCP) to a new lead education agency — the Imperial County Office of Education. The DCP has a renewed K-12 focus and is now led by Todd Finnell, a highly respected K-12 colleague and longtime member of CETPA.
Your CETPA directors are continually looking for ways to ease the struggle each of us experiences when dramatic technological advances occur. Educational staff members, whether credentialed or classified, continue to rely upon us for answers to both simple and complex questions. The focus of this issue of the DataBus is administrative systems. I am confident that you will find this issue useful and informative as you continue to support
the numerous administrative systems used throughout your district or
county office. Future issues are being planned to target other areas of interest and need.
On behalf of the CETPA board, I personally welcome you and wish to express my gratitude for your continued support. An organization is only as strong as its members and each of you has continually shown a strong commitment to your employers and to this association. The result of your efforts is evidenced in the classrooms and administrative offices of public schools throughout this great state.
I am humbled and honored by the opportunity to “take the helm” for the upcoming year and it is my hope that this year will be even more enriching for you than years past. I look forward to working with my many “CETPA friends” and to the new friendships that will inevitably be forged in the year ahead. In the meantime, please enjoy Volume 2005, Issue 1 of the DataBus as CETPA enters its 45th year!
