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the number of Wi-Fi complaints from the elementary school since Nile
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the number of IT staff supporting the entire school district
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the number of new buildings added to the network following the success of the Nile deployment
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The Challenge
The Cripple Creek-Victor School District (CC-V) serves the education needs of tiny Cripple Creek, Colorado, nestled at 10,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. The school district strives to prepare its students for the 21st century, but an aged network for which support and replacement parts were nonexistent, combined with unreliable Wi-Fi connectivity, severely hampered those efforts. A change was long past due, but the sole IT department employee in the district would need support making it happen and managing the network moving forward.
- Overburdened IT “team” of only one person
- Complex and tedious network management and maintenance
- Insufficient Wi-Fi coverage impacting the student and teacher experience
- Aged security: a breach waiting to happen
The Solution
The all-inclusive Nile Access Service was the ideal solution for CC-V because it encompasses everything from Day-0 site survey, through installation, monitoring and Day N operations. Today, Nile supports the unique needs of the CC-V elementary, middle and high schools as well as an early education program, adult education and a construction trade building.
- High-performance Wi-Fi for every device and user connected to the network
- Nile network backed by performance-based guarantees
- Strategically placed access points and sensors ensure availability, capacity and coverage
The Results
The Wi-Fi improvement at CC-V is nothing short of miraculous, providing coverage throughout every hallway and at every desk. The deployment process was quick and simple and now the network continually self tunes for optimal performance.
- Tactical, time-consuming network operations offloaded
- 24/7 monitoring and maintenance frees IT to enhance the learning experience
- High-performance Wi-Fi connectivity allows teachers to focus on educating
- Campus zero trust isolation protects students, teachers and data from malicious actors
- Introduction of pay-per-user consumption model, ideal for K-12 environments
Hands-off, reliable connectivity
“It takes an incredible amount of time and expertise to manage a network, and honestly that’s not the best use of my time, which is why the Nile solution is perfect,” explains Merrill Ballinger, CC-V IT director. “I have someone who’s monitoring and maintaining the network – they let me know if there are any issues and they solve them, freeing up my time to support teachers.”
Ballinger no longer needs to worry about the complexities that come with bringing up and maintaining the school’s network. Nile’s all-inclusive service allows her, as the district’s only IT staff member, to offload network operations.
“Smaller school districts like ours simply can’t afford to hire someone who is solely focused on maintaining the network,” says Ballinger. “I can’t get an E-Rate grant for a salaried position, but I can write one to pay for the Nile equipment and services that support our network.”
Zero complaints, zero complexity
Network connectivity was the first and most important priority at CC-V. The time Ballinger used to spend troubleshooting Wi-Fi is now devoted to finding innovative ways to align technology with teacher goals.
“Ninety percent of the IT tickets I received were for connectivity issues,” Ballinger says. “This resulted in some very frustrated teachers having a tough time leveraging technology in their lesson plans.”
The district relies on Google applications and equipment including Chromebooks, Google Classroom and Google Drive for in-class activities, homework, testing and student assessments. Dips in network performance caused havoc in the classroom, eating up precious learning time while teachers were troubleshooting. Often, the only stop-gap measure was a personal hotspot.
The situation also took a toll on Ballinger. “It was always in the back of my mind that I would have to go in on the weekend if the network went down,” she recalls. “In fact, more than once I was out hiking and got a call that there was an issue and had to turn around and drive to work.”
Next-level customer support
For Ballinger, Nile’s support has been a game changer. Thanks to Nile’s 24/7 proactive network monitoring, she is alerted to any issues immediately and can rest easy knowing that the Nile experts have it under control. On the few occasions that Ballinger has submitted a ticket to Nile, she got an immediate response and was guided all the way through to the resolution.
“Before Nile, I was basically starting from scratch every time I had to troubleshoot a problem and I was doing it all on my own,” says Ballinger. “I’d spend hours just trying to find the access point that was causing the issue.”
Securing student information
One of the many hats Ballinger wears is manager of the district’s student information database. With only a firewall to protect this sensitive data, that responsibility was a significant source of stress.
“Data security was always on my mind, it felt like it was only a matter of time until we had a breach with the old network,” says Ballinger. “Knowing that Nile has secured the network from end to end brings me so much peace of mind.”
Nile’s holistic, campus zero trust approach to security addresses the challenges that all schools face in securing their data and protecting their students. Campus zero trust isolation eliminates VLANs and the ability to easily move laterally throughout a network. Functionality like IEEE 802.1X authentication delivers unified secure access across wired and wireless. Standard right out of the box, the network and its connected devices are protected against malware proliferation and secured from malicious actors.
Simplifying consumption
Nile’s pay-per-user consumption model is ideal for school districts, ensuring that they pay based on actual usage. This payment structure is giving Ballinger exactly what she wants: the time and money to focus on improving the experience for teachers and students. When you support teachers, you ultimately help students, and Ballinger credits Nile with allowing her to do just that.
“School district IT professionals wear so many hats and we’re typically stretched pretty thin,” says Ballinger. “The Nile Access Service gives us the time we need to refocus on the things that best serve our students.”
“Smaller school districts like ours simply can’t afford to hire someone who is solely focused on maintaining the network. I can’t get an E-Rate grant for a salaried position, but I can write one to pay for the Nile equipment and services that support our network.”
– Merrill Ballinger, IT Director, Cripple Creek-Victor School District
“Data security was always on my mind, it felt like it was only a matter of time until we had a breach with the old network. Knowing that Nile has secured the network from end to end brings me so much peace of mind.”
– Merrill Ballinger, IT Director, Cripple Creek-Victor School District
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