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LaPlante pushes through puzzles to improve the district
YOUNGSTOWN
John LaPlante, Youngs-town city schools’ chief information officer and recent Illuminator of the Year Award winner, said although he’s honored to bring recognition to the schools, the national award was won by everyone in the district.
“Youngstown [schools are] full of hard-working people honestly trying to do the best for their kids,” he said. “I am just a conduit to get this work done, and everyone helps in some way.”
LaPlante, who was hired by CEO Krish Mohip with an annual salary of $123,000, was one of three people from across the U.S. nominated for the award.
The award is designated for an educator or administrator for outstanding work in the use of Illuminate software.
The work LaPlante does includes sorting through “a mountain of data” with no one being able to process it all in a reasonable amount of time, and finding the trick to get the appropriate information to the people who need it.
“It’s like a puzzle – I like that,” he said.
LaPlante, who grew up in San Diego, has lived in the Youngstown area for 13 years. He and his wife, Laurie, have three children.
Gregory Kibler, the district’s deputy chief of data and deputy chief of transformation, said once LaPlante figured out a way to process the information, the next step was having transformation officers and LaPlante himself translate the information for teachers and administrators.
“We now have the opportunity to analyze data – like grades, attendance and tardiness – quicker and develop strategies and spend more time on strategies and teaching to meet the students’ needs so they can be successful,” said Tim Filipovich, chief of academics, accountability and assessment.
The keys, he emphasized, are having real-time data readily available and having the right people understand how to interpret it.
Roshay Huff, director of transformation, said LaPlante has been “beyond fabulous” in working with other school employees.
“He is the most patient and knowledgeable person,” she said. “He fosters all of this confidence in us with his you-can-do-this, you-can-learn-this attitude.”
Kibler said LaPlante has been paving quite a path for the district with his “strong impact.”
“He’s got a quality very rare,” he said. “You can go to him with anything from how to turn on a computer to something way more complex, and he values insight and [he’s] not condescending. ... He’s incredibly hard-working and incredibly selfless and does a ton of work on the weekends for teachers and principals. A lot of people have not done [this] in the past, and this is something at its beginning. People will soon be able to see the transformation of Youngstown [schools].
Huff said LaPlante makes the transition “comfortable” with easy-to-follow instructions with pictures, step-by-step walk-throughs of new programs, on-call advice readily available and a good attitude accompanied with a friendly smile.
“This is a big shift for all the principals in this area right now. ... He’s made the programs he’s implementing so user-friendly – and even if they aren’t to you, he doesn’t make you feel dumb about it,” she said. “He really goes above and beyond.”
LaPlante, however, said he doesn’t think of himself in terms of patient, but merely doing his job.
“The best thing about my day is working with teachers and working with administrators in using technology,” he said.
And working with teachers and administrators isn’t the only thing LaPlante is doing; he also is working with students.
“We owe it to [students] to teach them how to be good technology users – other than just posting Instagram photos,” he said. “I’m not an educator by trade, but this is how I contribute.”
From there, LaPlante already is thinking about the next step.
“I’m a glass half-full kind of guy, so I don’t think about the biggest challenges in front of me, but I think about opportunities,” he said.
School board President Brenda Kimble said LaPlante “can do nothing except move the district forward.”
“With LaPlante on board, it will be hard for the district to fail,” Kibler said.