Challenges
- Downtime during product updates
- Heavy burden on small IT team
- Outdated reporting functionality put state funding at risk
Solution
Results
- Less burden on IT team
- Improved Security
- State reporting functionality updated to meet funding deadlines
KIPP Memphis Collegiate Schools understands there is strength in numbers. Its IT team needed help managing its SIS responsibilities so they could focus on school technology support.
The small IT team found itself spending extra hours maintaining on-site hardware, running updates, and backing up student data for KIPP Memphis’ 2,815 students in seven charter schools. Ultimately, time spent on self-hosting was time that could have been dedicated to supporting the organization’s mission of equipping students with the necessary technology to enhance academic and life skills needed to succeed.
Challenges: Extra Hours and Missing Funding
“Our IT team had major headaches with updates, backups done locally, and staff hours taken to sit and monitor the system to make sure things were going smoothly. Evenings and weekends were spent managing the on-premise hosting responsivities.” says Leslie Phillips, Manager of Student Information.
Phillips is responsible for sending necessary student data extracts to the Tennessee Department of Education at the beginning of the school year. Because of self-hosting, any delays in updating their SIS also affected their ability to report to the state accurately and on time.
“When I started getting ready to send out state enrollment data, I learned that because we hadn’t automatically updated to the latest version of our SIS, my extracts wouldn’t be able to be sent out. We were facing the danger of missing state deadlines, and ultimately, missing needed funding,” Phillips says. This is especially a concern for the district when access to buildings and school closures makes it impossible for staff to make any updates in person.
Cloud Hosting to the Rescue
With a small IT team and a threat to state funding, KIPP Memphis staff researched how cloud hosting could alleviate these issues and enable them to focus instead on meeting student needs in any situation. Nationally, more and more schools and districts are turning to cloud hosting to lower the overall cost of edtech ownership, taking away the need to purchase or update hardware and instead having all maintenance handled by the SIS vendor. Additionally, cloud hosting allows IT teams more flexibility when getting into school buildings isn’t an option. Instead, the SIS vendor solves issues remotely, alleviating staff pressure and lowering risks.
KIPP Memphis decided to go with PowerSchool Hosting because it helped streamline state data reporting and lessened the burden on IT staff. Other benefits they received included adhering to best practices for both physical and virtual security, flexibility, and scalability as edtech continues to expand. It also enabled faster accessibility to student data from anywhere with secure remote access.
PowerSchool Hosting recently received its first SOC 2 report, which requires companies to establish and follow strict information security policies and procedures around the security, availability, and confidentiality of customer data. The examination provides assurance that controls relevant to the AICPA Trust Services Security, Availability, and Confidentiality Principles are designed and operating effectively. Schools and districts can use these reports to evaluate edtech vendors and verify whether or not they meet essential requirements from various teams, including security, compliance, internal audit, and procurement, among others.
Shouldering the Burden
Phillips says that with cloud hosting through PowerSchool, all SIS fixes and updates are made automatically, completely taking the burden from the KIPP Memphis IT team. The organization has eliminated costs associated with upgrading and purchasing hardware, along with staff time (and overtime) devoted to maintaining the system on-site.
Phillips says the PowerSchool Hosting team made the migration as seamless as possible, even when KIPP Memphis’ equipment required extra steps to complete the process. “The PowerSchool team bent over backwards to make sure our migration went smoothly and securely. Our IT team worked directly with our PowerSchool implementation manager to get us set up and successful.”
“Since we’ve moved to cloud hosting, there is no extra burden or workload on IT,” Phillips says. “They can devote their time to normal day-to-day operation, so they are able to support the rest of the organization instead of spending time on hosting responsibilities. For me, the SIS is now always automatically updated so I am confident I can submit accurate, timely information to the state to secure our funding.”