e-SchoolNews Online

May 18, 2006—As the superintendent of the Katy Independent School District in metropolitan Houston, Leonard Merrell knows a thing or two about growing pains.

Reportedly the fastest-growing district in all of Texas, Katy adds an additional 3,000 students every school year.

The growth has come with its share of complications, says Merrell. Three years ago, the district's technology infrastructure was near collapse. As new students and families continued pouring into the community year after year, district administrators and teachers struggled to keep the network up to speed. They sought to ensure that technology components--from basic classroom computers to complex back-office systems used to manage transportation and food service--were capable of meeting the needs of a growing population. 

Hoping to add a touch of corporate efficiency to the district's overmatched IT department, Merrell took an unorthodox approach. Rather than try and grow the network under its current regime, he hired a pair of private-sector executives to overhaul the entire infrastructure.

"We all had an idea of where we wanted technology to go ... but needed someone who could translate that vision into a reality," said Merrell.

The search eventually led the district to Scott Wright, a former executive and technology consultant who had spent the majority of his career working in the oil and gas industries. Merrell invited Wright and members of his independent consulting firm, Xpediant, to the district. Their charge: to stabilize Katy's overburdened IT infrastructure and improve the quality of its back-end operations.

Three years and several sweeping reforms later, Wright says Katy's once-maligned infrastructure now adequately services some 48,000 students and 4,000 full- and part-time instructors--all with an approval rating that reportedly tops 90 percent of school district employees.

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