Jefferson County Public Schools is located in Louisville, Kentucky, and is providing high-quality education to over 100,000 K-12 students. JCPS is known as the 27th largest school district in the United States, with its surroundings being rich in diversity, with no less than 125 languages spoken. JCPS’s goals consist of providing unique, innovative learning opportunities for their students and staff. In order to achieve their goals, JCPS needed an upgraded learning environment that would provide them with an efficient, reliable network infrastructure, high-quality network monitoring capabilities, as well as full data protection against unauthorized access.
The school district was faced with difficult challenges, but determined to achieve their goals and advance their district to the future. The US E-rate program has enabled JCPS to maintain their commitment to engaging students and staff by incorporating a variety of cutting-edge educational technology solutions into the classroom. In fact, the district ranks number five among all US school districts in E-rate funding. JCPS is on track to issue Chromebooks in the Everyone:1 initiative for personalized learning. Additionally, the administration is equipping the student body with iPads and Windows devices totaling 100,000 devices across the district. The massive number of devices being used by students and staff was pushing JCSP’s network to the max. Bringing new devices onto the network without lag and managing the coming and going of Chromebooks was a challenge for the network team. With the uncertainties brought on by COVID-19, the primary challenges became scheduling upgrades, managing support, and testing the network. As COVID-19 continued to evolve JCPS was even more committed to providing engaged, innovative learning for their students. JCPS was in desperate need of a network upgrade.
Due to the pandemic, students and staff needed to shift immediately to an entirely remote learning environment. At JCPS there are typically three to four devices per user connected to the network, making reliable and consistent connectivity vital. The JCPS network team remained calm amidst the chaotic environment of staff and students adjusting to remote learning. The Extreme Network tools available to the network team allowed them to get users online quickly. Teachers were given multiple remote teaching options to utilize from home and were able to get back to work. The district quickly set up NTI (non-traditional instruction) 2.0 virtual classrooms and continued to provide a variety of alternative learning experiences for students in this challenging time. While JCPS managed remote staff and students, the network team moved forward with a major upgrade to their wireless network and core infrastructure as top priority for the upcoming school year.
“With the tools provided by Extreme, we have a safe, secure, reliable, resistant, resilient network. That is our main goal. Plus, Extreme has fantastic support. We like everything we use of theirs.” – Annette R. Harris, Assistant Director of Infrastructure Services, Jefferson County Public Schools
JCPS chose Extreme Networks to revitalize their network infrastructure to support a future forward thinking, technology–focused learning environment. Extreme Networks, StepCG, and JCPS’ network teams joined together for a successful deployment despite the unanticipated impacts of the pandemic. JCPS’s Extreme solution included ExtremeSwitching, ExtremeWireless, ExtremeManagementCenter, ExtremeAnalytics, and Outdoor Wireless Mesh. JCPS can continue achieving their goals and advancing toward the future because Extreme Networks provided them with reliable Wi-Fi connectivity across the district for personalized learning, high quality local and remote support for operational efficiently, educational continuity during COVID-19, a safe and secure network, and the highest level of operational efficiency.
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