November 06, 2019
Technology in our schools enables modern learning paths and brings a new level of innovation to the classroom. While it is inarguable that technology has enriched the lives of students, it has also introduced significant risk. Today’s K-12 technology leaders are faced with a multitude of challenges brought on by high-tech learning environments including student, faculty and staff safety and privacy, growing IT complexity, device loss and/or theft and demonstrable resource ROI. To track, manage, repair and recover across more than 37,000 endpoint devices, the Klein Independent School District (ISD) in Klein, Texas turned to Absolute.
Klein ISD is known for its innovative culture and dedication to leveraging technology to empower students and staff to harness the latest advancements in education. It made perfect sense then when they deployed a one-to-one computing program that provisions one device for each student.
For the last ten years, Klein ISD has leveraged Absolute for its ability to provide a single source of truth into their device fleet and manage them remotely. They also rely on Absolute for deep analytics on device use and the protection of student, faculty and staff data. To deploy Absolute, Klein ISD simply activated the technology already embedded in each device at the manufacturer.
“Initially, stop loss was the primary reason we chose Absolute, but what keeps us at the table today is their ability to provide us with more information about what’s being stored on the devices and what’s being utilized,” said Chris Cummings, Information Technology, Teaching & Learning, Klein ISD. “I continue to choose Absolute because of their innovation. They help us stay ahead of compliance and offer the latest advantages to our students and faculty.”
Nationally, cybersecurity spend is on the rise. The 2019 CIO Agenda K-12 Education Industry Insight report from Gartner found that 47 percent of K-12 organizations plan to make cybersecurity their primary investment. However, recent research by Absolute found that, in the complex world of endpoint security, increased security spending does not equate to increased safety. In fact, every additional security tool only increases the probability of failure as agents and controls conflict with one another on the endpoint.
According to global Absolute research, Cybersecurity and Education: The State of the Digital District in 2020, 38 percent of patch agents require at least one repair monthly and 28 percent of encryption agents fail monthly. Without visibility and control of endpoint devices, students and districts are exposed.
For Klein ISD, this meant a reliance on Absolute for their tamper-proof device visibility and control for a persistent, self-healing connection between IT and all devices, whether they are on or off the network.
“It’s one thing to implement a security program; it’s another to measure the effectiveness of your security program,” Cummings added. “And with Absolute, we’re able to verify just how effective our program really is.”
Understanding what’s happening on the devices, responding to suspicious events, and empowering applications to persist and automating their restoration when incidents occurs is the key.
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