More staff was the only request of the technology department at the Pleasant Valley building and grounds committee meeting Monday night.

Charles Tomori, the newly hired technology coordinator for the school district, was clear, “We are understaffed in the cyber department.”

Tomori’s move into his new position from his former job as information systems technology was made official at last week’s school board meeting. His new position oversees the Pleasant Valley Cyber Academy.

Last year, the cyber academy had about 200 students. Currently, it has about 1,200 students, he said that keeps changing. Some families left for other schools, some went back to the district’s brick-and-mortar schools, and others had enrollments that were being processed, so the numbers have kept changing.

“We are stretched very thin,” he said.

Tomori said his staff officially includes himself, a teacher and a secretary whose job is split between the cyber academy and the technology department, but they have been receiving help from several other secretaries and the assistant principal at the high school. Unfortunately for the cyber academy, these people have other jobs to do and need to focus on that work very soon.

Tomori said the cyber academy needs a full-time secretary specifically assigned to it, and a second teacher. The teachers could split the grades with one taking kindergarten through sixth grade and the other taking seventh through 12th grade.

“I think you need it, so I’m on board,” said school board Director Dan Wunder.

School board President Donna Yozwiak asked if the decision to do this could wait until the next school board meeting on Oct. 22 or if it needs to be done now.

“I recommend the sooner the better,” Tomori said given the number of students enrolled in the cyber academy and the number of calls coming in from parents.

School board Director Norman Burger said, “I recommend we assign the individual as soon as possible.”

“I agree,” Wunder said.

Tomori gave them an update on the work that has been accomplished since Friday. He the requests have been completed and sent to VLN Partners, the educational services company for the virtual platform that the district uses, to convert the last 206 seat licenses over to full licenses. He plans to have the letters to the families done today and the conversion completed by Wednesday.

“We’ve made a lot of progress this week to get the word out,” he said, about the two ConnectEd calls also sent to inform parents.

Wunder asked him if it is possible that some families are still not getting the ConnectEd calls.

Tomori said it’s possible. He thinks they have reached all of them or at least 95% of the families. Once they get the conversion of the licenses complete and everyone has started their classes, he said he wants to make a courtesy call to everyone to check in on how they are doing.

“You need the infrastructure there to receive and return calls. That seems to be what is frustrating people right now,” Wunder said.

Tomori said that’s why they need a secretary full-time to handle these calls.

School board Director Laura Jecker asked Tomori if he has updated the website yet with information for the cyber academy. He said no, because he thought the ConnectEd call would be the quickest and most direct way to reach the families at this time.

Jecker asked him if he could post it online now. He said he could put up the notification he sent out in the ConnectEd call.

“I agree with Laura,” Burger said. “There are always a few that will slip through the cracks for a variety of reasons.”

Jecker also asked why the cyber academy needs teachers from the district when VLN Partners has its own teachers. Tomori explained that the district teacher they have right now fixes scheduling issues and helps with curriculum questions and does this for all of the students. This is why he needs a second teacher.

Wunder clarified that the program had one person who took care of 200 students, and now there would be two people taking care of about 600 students each.

“We want to make sure every child is learning,” he said. “That’s our top priority.”

The school board gave Tomori the approval to find someone to help who is already employed within the district. He said he has started looking and asked the principals for some suggestions of possible candidates.