- May 13, 2026
In an effort to retain Flagler Schools technology employees and provide them with a path to move up the ladder, Ryan Deising, the district’s chief of technology, presented the School Board with a plan to realign several positions.
The entry level network service technician position will be upgraded to technology support specialist I. The technology support specialist role will become technology support specialist II. The 13 employees in this position will have an opportunity to move up to technology support specialist III. There will be two level III positions, which will be open only to internal candidates.
“This is trying to make kind of an alignment as we move along so that there's some job progression,” Deising said. “Talking with staff, a lot of them feel like there's not a good path that's set up for them, especially when we're bringing folks in early in their careers.”
Deising said four or five technology staffers left this year for positions elsewhere because they did not see a clear path for promotion in the school district.
“They’d say, ‘I've got to wait until somebody leaves,’ because we didn't have these [positions] set up in progression,” he said. “When you get offered jobs that are significant, I cannot blame anyone for taking them.”
Deising said he’d like to build from within by keeping employees engaged and giving them opportunities to move up.
A key part of the plan is raising the pay scales. By eliminating the vacant $52,000 technology support position, they can pay the three support specialist I employees $1.62 more an hour for a total increase of $10,000. The 13 support specialist II employees will receive 85 cents more an hour for a total increase of $23,000 and the two support specialist III employees will receive $2.66 more an hour for an $11,000 total increase.
Deising presented the board with the plan at an agenda workshop on Tuesday, May 12. The board is expected to approve the realignment at its next business meeting, which has been moved up to May 19.
The realignment also includes changing the role of website content manager to web systems support specialist.
“We’ve had some shifts of how we manage a website,” Deising said.
The website content manager position was set up for marketing and content management, Deising said. It required a bachelor’s degree in English, journalism or technical writing or five years of work experience in a related field. The new position requires a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology or a related technical field. The pay lane is the same as the previous position.
In creating the three new support specialist levels, Deising and his team researched technology department in neighboring districts from Nassau County down to Volusia, Lake and Seminole counties. Flagler Schools’ entry-level technicians were getting paid less than all of the other districts except Putnam, Deising said.
“Volusia has a program that kind of takes their high school students in which is why you've seen where the placement is for that technology support specialist I,” Deising said.
The new entry-level specialist I position calls for an associate’s degree in computer science or information systems or two years of comparable experience in information systems technology.
“This change kind of puts us at the bottom of the midway point [of the pay scale]. We're not at the bottom, but there's definitely a lot [of room] towards the top,” Deising said, adding that they also looked at similar positions in municipalities within Flagler County. “We feel like this gets us to be able to stay somewhat competitive if we're talking about bringing folks in.”
Board member Lauren Ramirez commended Deising but said she would like to see how the entire district can find similar ways to raise salaries without increasing budgets.
“I love this,” she said. “It's just that last year, I brought up something similar for the nursing. I’d like to see other roles streamlined. I feel like it would make sense all across the board.”
