There's a Right Way to Leverage the Newest IT Infrastructure for K-12 Education

AUSTIN, Texas - Oct. 30, 2019 - PRLog -- Why Are IT Systems For K-12 Education So Complicated?

Even the most modest-sized K-12 school districts face complex IT requirements that rival those of many large commercial businesses. How can K-12 education navigate the ever-changing IT infrastructure landscape and come out on top? We take a look.

New Expectations For K-12 IT Infrastructure Mean Even Greater IT Requirements

A generation or two ago, the IT requirements for K-12 Education systems mostly revolved around managing employee HR benefits and payrolls, facilities maintenance and capital improvement budgets, library and textbook inventories, athletics programs, bus transportation, as well as student health and attendance records, test results and grades.

It was a much simpler time.

But the same switch to project-based learning that turned classroom facility design on its head has caused the IT requirements for K-12 education to grow exponentially as well.

Within a few years, K-12 IT teams have found themselves facing service challenges that rivaled, or even exceeded, those of similarly sized private commercial businesses.

Consider for a moment a moderately-sized school district — one with five high schools, each with 1,800 students. That quickly adds up to 9,000 (!) student users, each of whom will want to:

• Download and upload their homework assignments from home.
• Work on their projects in the Computer Lab, often using hardware-intensive software apps.
• Use Computer-Based Training (CBT) apps, often with video and game elements.
• Bring one or more computing devices to school (BYOD), from smartphones to notebook computers, and access the network.
• Pose questions to their teachers after hours via their smartphones.
• Access library reference materials and check out ebooks.
• Chat with other classmates working together on group projects.
• Get timely emergency alerts or weather-related notices via texts.

And that's just the base scenario for now.

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