IT support needs at schools have increased severalfold in recent years, with many small campuses turning to outsourced IT services to make up the difference and bring in higher IT standards. For example, EdTech Magazine has reported phishing as one of the top causes of security breaches, leading to many schools turning to zero-trust security policies to ensure they remain secure.
So, what does this look like in real terms, and how does IT support for charter schools and small campuses ensure that schools can instead focus more of their efforts on teaching?
Below, we discuss the technology they employ, as well as the specific tools they use to enhance safety in learning environments, while ensuring they continue to comply with local and regional mandates. Discover what groups like InLine Networks can offer to support technology for small schools and campuses with their support model today.
Why Outsourced IT Support for Charter Schools and Small Campuses Excels
While K-12 sector schools have quickly taken on a vast digital transformation, over half of them still lack adequate classroom tech support, according to MGT. As such, schools turning to external support instead leverage a dedicated digital help desk instead of hiring on an ad-hoc basis or solely using salaried IT support, offering several benefits over both:
- Priority faculty tickets are often remotely resolved in minutes rather than waiting for on-call support
- Remote 24/7 IT management can patch devices after hours and avoid downtime during the day
- Proactive and AI-powered monitoring systems can alert staff to failing hardware before issues
- vCIO services can gather real data to support your organization’s growth at a fraction of the cost
- Automated compliance reporting simplifies your cybersecurity processes
- A single external partner drastically reduces the chance of a malicious actor within your team
As these businesses tend to have extensive experience, not only with your network but also with dozens of others across the country, they will have standardized ways of handling many common errors. When a cybersecurity issue starts to crop up across the nation, they can use their knowledge from having learned from many other networks to secure yours from the same problem.
Leaner Budgets with Managed IT Services
Instead of you needing to pay for large numbers of engineers across your system, you can opt for a subscription price that lends itself to a lower budget for IT solutions for campuses, while often gaining several benefits in terms of improved responses. The large engineer pool available from such a company also means that you have access to a vastly expanded level of talent, and the company can direct specialists towards your issues without you needing to upskill your team.
You will also not need to pay full-time for every individual hire when you bring on new talent, with the service costing only a fraction of the price for expanded support for a larger network. This cost will also be highly predictable, allowing you to scale up and down as necessary for your school’s growth.
Bundled Cybersecurity Ensures FERPA Compliance
As the Institute of Education Sciences reports, at least 97% of schools use some level of security to protect access to their physical school, so why not take action to ensure the same is true of the IT network? The unified threat management system they run can block malicious sites or links before students click on them.
The business will also learn of them much faster than an in-house team of IT support engineers and can keep a much more robust list of dangerous links, where every mistake a different company makes will set yours as that much safer, as they note down a new problematic hyperlink.
External support can also run continuous vulnerability scans of each of your networks, constantly searching for external attack vectors, and then plug them up. At the same time, you need not worry about security training, with the external supplier responsible for their own efforts.
Finally, they can also create encrypted backups of any data you wish to secure and, being an external partner, are already off-site, fulfilling an additional security criterion for backup storage.
How Small Campuses Self-Organize Like Larger Ones
Many smaller schools can’t organize a large datacenter, like larger or more well-funded institutions. To help offset this challenge, IT services can often instead deliver enterprise-level cloud platforms, meaning that even without server rooms, they can offer all users access to:
- Storage
- Collaboration tools
- Remote desktops
Along with ubiquitous Wi-Fi 6 access points across the campus, they can then handle densely utilized testing labs or other crowded areas.
Combined with the aforementioned zero-trust protections, it means that users can access everything they need from anywhere, even while at home or during extracurricular travel, as long as they adhere to the server’s security requirements, such as multi-factor authentication.
Segmenting any remaining infrastructure allows you to leverage IoT devices or other smaller networked devices, such as the school HVAC, without worrying about anomalous logins through them. Use of different policy rules in alternate areas, installed by a remote team, helps to ensure all users remain safe from malicious connections.
Other Ways IT Outsourcing Benefits Schools
Outsourcing also means that your staff do not have to overextend themselves. The service can pick up any slack at the end of a busy day, reducing overtime costs, which also improves staff morale and retention.
The increased security from the diverse range of incident-handling measures also means that you can often reduce the risk scores in your cyber-insurance, saving you money in premiums. It also prevents you from needing to compensate users or state compliance monitors for any future events.
Bring Your Campus IT Into the Modern Day
Outsourcing IT support for charter schools and small campuses ensures more efficient school operations from the moment they start running their first tests and making change suggestions. With this type of IT support for charter schools and small campuses, you will see all the benefits of a larger team with a vast amount of experience for a fraction of the cost.
TruePoint Systems is one example of such a team, and we can deliver enterprise-level network resilience, regardless of your organization’s size. So, schedule a cost-free technology assessment and discuss your current situation with us today.
