She starts the day like any other staffer at this school. She wakes up, gets ready for work, clocks in and checks into her office. Only instead of managing a few hundred kids or grading gratuitous amounts of papers throughout her day, her responsibilities include managing the network for every single user on campus and offering support for over 900 students and over 100 faculty members with any of their technology issues.

Amanda Coleman, the campus’ resident Technology Support Specialist, continues her work here since starting in her position in April of 2018. Anything from a fallen, damaged laptop to error messages to problems with printers and teacher’s equipment, falls under her domain. Students often overlook her significance; however, similar to bees or large apex predators in an ecosystem, if she went missing, everyone would surely notice. Despite this unique and large undertaking, she starts her day like everyone else.

“I have to be here before 8, but I usually arrive a little early so my daughter can have her stuff dropped off,” Coleman said. “Then, I come in. Luckily, I have everything else done from the day before.

Many staffers take their work home with them, like grading for instance, when they leave at the end of the day. However, since most of what she works on consists of rented-out laptops, Coleman works diligently to complete every task asked of her.

“Most things I can handle unless it’s like Wi-Fi or deals with the phones,” Coleman said.

Before working here, she worked in an I.T. department for an oil and technology company. After leaving there, she taught computer lab in Sanger for third, fourth and fifth graders. Then she came to work here. Coleman certainly possesses the training and experience for her position, including how to deal with wacky and strange.

“I had one student come in who had spilt water on their laptop. They said they didn’t,” Coleman said. “When I opened the laptop, there was still water all in it.”

Regardless of what she encounters on her work desk, she welcomes the problems as well as students and faculty.

“Most of the time, I’m just here,” Coleman said. “But I like being here and being available for the students. Really, I wanted to create an environment where students could always come if they needed help, especially with how important technology is here.”