Kingfisher Public Schools technology education instructor Kurt Kaya may not be giving up his day job, but a summer spent working in the information technology department of a major insurance company was rewarding for both him and his students.

Kaya, who teaches tech ed classes at both the middle and high school, just wrapped up a summer as one of eight Oklahoma STEM Teacher Fellows with American Fidelity.

“The American Fidelity Teacher Fellowship is an opportunity for selected STEM teachers throughout Oklahoma to work in the company’s IT department during the summer,” Kaya said.

According to the American Fidelity website, the fellowship “gives teachers the opportunity to work on our software development, data, IT security or technical infrastructure areas and gain real-world experience. They can then take this experience back to the classroom to help students learn about and prepare for these careers.”

As an AF Teacher Fellow, Kaya earned a corporate IT salary for a twomonth period and received a $2,000 stipend to use for his classrooms.

“The TechEd program is generously funded by OK CareerTech and Kingfisher Public Schools,” Kaya said. “However the extra $2,000 was a wonderful addition which I used to purchase additional robot kits for use at the middle school, and three standing height welded metal work benches for the high school lab.”

Kaya had read about the fellowship in the CareerTech newsletter and sent in his application at the beginning of March. Following an interview over Skype, he earned a coveted spot in the program.

For the past two years of the program, AF Teacher Fellows worked alongside IT workers at the American Fidelity campus in Oklahoma City. Due to the pandemic, American Fidelity was forced to close its offices, sending the Teach Fellow program into limbo.

However, unlike many companies of their size, American Fidelity had an established workforce that was used to working at home. Nearly 80% of the company’s IT workforce telecommuted on a regular basis, which made the decision to hold a virtual summer fellowship program all the easier.

“We were ‘onboarded’ on June 1, which included safety training, corporate values and protocols, introductory technical videos and instructions for use of American Fidelity loaned laptops and headsets,” Kaya said, noting the company provided high-powered laptops for home use during the fellowship.

The Teacher Fellows spent the first two weeks meeting virtually with select IT workers within the corporate infrastructure from top level architects and executives to support center representatives and even interns.

Once familiar with the IT landscape, subsequent weeks for Kaya and his fellow teacher group consisted of software training, shadowing IT professionals as they went about their daily tasks and meetings with many of the people they met in the first two weeks.

“We were given unprecedented access to every level of IT in the company and had time to establish relationships with everyone we talked to,” he said.

“Wednesdays were Teacher Fellow focused days, allowing the eight teachers to meet, talk about our experiences and knowledge gained, reflect on who we shadowed and – the most fun of all – discussing how we were going to spend our $2,000 stipend,” Kaya said.

“It also gave us time to bond as teachers, share our classroom experiences, commiserate on the challenges the 20-21 school year will bring, and of course, grumble about things that all teachers generally grumble about.”

All it took was two months spent with other teachers from throughout Oklahoma to make Kaya realize how fortunate he was to teach in Kingfisher, he said.

“No kidding, we have it pretty darn good here,” he added.

Some of the most poignant and relevant interactions for Kaya involved hearing about the life path that many of the IT professionals took to get a job in the high-paying and in-demand technical world.

He explained how the background stories of the IT workers ran the gamut, from paid interns who were still in college to programmers and system analysts with advanced degrees in computer science.

“I heard stories from people who had years of military service to various levels of technical school,” he said, noting he found those nontraditional stories refreshing because his CareerTech program is geared toward both college-bound and direct-to-workforce students.

“Last week I spent an afternoon with a senior software developer who started her career as an art teacher and somehow her life journey landed her as a senior software developer with eight years seniority.”

Kaya had worked as a software engineer in a corporate IT environment prior to moving to Oklahoma in 2004. At that time, the representation of women in the IT profession was far below the averages of other skilled professions.

He said he was surprised to find that American Fidelity has a diverse group of IT staff, with a growing population of female IT workers at all levels of the department, starting with company president Jeannette Rice, who grew up south of Okarche, and Diane Bittle, chief information officer.

“I even spent a day shadowing Kingfisher native, Mary (Boyle) Trivitt, who works as a vice president in the IT Policy Administration Applications group. “Mrs. Trivitt told me how she first became interested in computers in Dana Golbek’s math class at KHS back in the 80s.”

Although it may seem strange to do an IT Fellowship with an insurance company, Kaya said the motto around campus was, American Fidelity went from an Insurance company that had an IT department, to an IT company that sold insurance.

“In fact, while we were there, the IT Department was awarded its 17^th appearance on Insider Pro and Computerworld’s 100 Best Places to Work in IT, landing at No. 25 among mid-sized companies,” Kaya said.