If someone on the CHS campus is experiencing issues with technology, then they may end up meeting Traci Kosaki. So who is she?
Before coming to CHS, Kosaki worked at Skyridge. Her job was working with in-school suspension, special education, and most recently, technology. After moving to CHS she has continued her work in technology, and she is eager to assist students and staff across the campus. All in all, she has worked in the district for 12 years.
Disliking sitting still, her new position works out quite nicely. It is common to see her moving around CHS and meeting students or staff along the way. Kosaki says that the best part of her job is working with the kids.
As the primary device students use, she works quite often with Chromebooks. Although that isn’t entirely the limits of her job. When asked how students could help her out, she mentioned a couple of details:
“We have this charging station that’s right by the library… It’s a benefit to me and to everybody if [you use it]… [When] you come to school, and nine times out of ten [you] forgot to charge overnight, and [your] cChromebook’salmost dead. But you know you don’t need it until an hour later, and you don’t want to leave it alone…” She further explained how to use the charging station. All you have to do is choose the locker number that you want, enter a four-digit combination of your choosing, and proceed to plug in whatever electronics you need charged. Once the items have been charged, you simply return to the charging station, select the locker that you are opening, enter the code, and retrieve your items. It is completely free of charge and is easy to use, conveniently located right outside the library.
Kosaki says, “My job is to help students help themselves, it’s like problem solving, that’s what we do in tech, it’s just problem solving. You know the first thing is ‘Did you reboot it?’, ‘Did you plug it in?’…”
Along the lines of rebooting, she stated that students need to completely shut down their chromebooks. “[Don’t] just close the screen, because that’s when your chromebook gets all of its updates. Sometimes there are little tweaky problems, small things like ‘why is it doing that’, and sometimes it just needs an update.”
In her experience with the Camas High School community thus far, she has been pleasantly surprised. “You know they told me there’s so many more people, and it’s such a big difference from the middle school, and it is, but everybody that I’ve come across has been nice and welcoming.”
Mr. Nicholson, when asked, stated that “[Traci] is very eager to do a good job, and eager to learn about the new teachers and where their rooms are, since it’s a larger school. She’s very enthusiastic to help solve the tech issues we have. Eager, I guess that’s the big word. Eager, enthusiastic, and hard working.”
Before working in education, Kosaki was a flight attendant. She graduated from the University of Hawaii, where she was born and raised. She also has a ten-year-old son at Prune Hill Elementary.
Ultimately, Ms. Kosaki is a great new addition to CHS. Camas is excited to welcome her and are grateful for the support she’ll surely provide.
