Device Distribution: Tips for a Successful Start to the School Year
IT teams have a tremendous responsibility to gather, prepare, store, and distribute devices. We previously discussed the strategic way to store devices for extended periods—but how do IT teams effectively distribute devices? While proper storage is very important, distributing the devices is just as vital, as...
Establishing a “Game-Changing” Asset Management and Help Ticketing Solution for Democracy Prep Public Schools
Background Democracy Prep Public Schools is not your average public school district. Since being established in 2005, Democracy Prep has grown to 24 public charter schools across 5 states. Jonathan Salcedo, Director of Network Technology, knew that Democracy Prep’s unique situation demanded a better support solution for...
The Benefits of Interoperability for K-12 IT Support
There is a word that’s commonly used in IT support circles—interoperability. Interoperability refers to the ability for IT systems and software to intelligently exchange and use information, which is the goal for today’s budget-strained K-12 IT support teams. Nowadays, it’s costly to have inefficient IT systems....
The Summer Guide for Storing Student Devices: Long-Term Chromebook Storage Tips
For a K-12 IT team, collecting individual Chromebooks from students and storing them for the summer is a long and tedious task. After each Chromebook is collected, IT teams get ready to jump the next hurtle—preparing all Chromebooks for storage. That process includes ensuring devices are...
Top 3 Reasons Why Asset Metadata and Histories Are Integral to K-12 Asset Management
Here’s a somewhat staggering fact for our K-12 IT folks out there—thanks to the demand of edtech tools in the present classroom environment, the K-12 education technology industry is currently valued to reach $56,490,000 by 2026. That’s a whopping 79% increase in valuation from 2019,...
Coweta’s Frictionless Onboarding with Incident IQ
Background Coweta Public School teaches over 3,500 students in northeast Oklahoma. When Michael Carter joined the K-12 district as their new Director of Information Technology, he knew he needed to take Coweta’s asset management and help ticketing to a new level. At the time, Coweta’s IT workflow...
5 Reasons to Handle School Facilities & Asset Management On One Platform
If you ask a person on the street the first thing that comes to mind when they think of schools, you’ll probably hear things like: “Desks, tests, classrooms, teachers, recess, and detention.” What you’re not likely to hear is an in-depth understanding of all the behind-the-scenes...
End-of-Year Asset Collection Checklist
How many months did you spend planning your last device collection? How many teachers did you have to train, and asset labels did you have to re-apply? Deploying student devices and school assets is hard enough as it is, and before you know it, it's the...
The “Night and Day” Transformation of Nampa School District’s Help Ticketing and Asset Management
Background Nampa School District spans over 24 locations around Nampa, Idaho, and teaches over 14,000 students from kindergarten to twelfth grade. This northwestern district was at the forefront of one-to-one device initiatives—this school year marks their fourth year with their student device program. As Nampa’s one-to-one program...
The Best Communities for K-12 Sysadmins to Join
A professional community is where like-minded contributors can share best practices, discuss trending topics, and seek advice from their colleagues. For K-12 teams, community is often baked into the job, but the internet means active online communities are now available at the click of a...
The Ultimate Guide to School Asset Tracking
What would happen if one day you stopped keeping track of things? No more grocery lists, no more Google calendars, and no more scratching down quick reminders on a sticky note. Let that sink in. Technically, the average person can only keep track of four...
Executing 1:1 Initiatives: Best Practices for K-12 Schools
Over the past several years, 1:1 initiatives have taken K-12 schools by storm. Students now have equitable access to computers, tablets, and digital resources that let them take their education far beyond the front and back pages of a physical textbook. It all sounds great—and it...
Bringing Rankin County School District’s Asset Management and Help Ticketing Into Focus with Incident IQ
Background As the third largest K-12 district in Mississippi, Rankin County School District has an IT team that covers 28 schools and over 19,000 student devices. But with more students joining every year and the demand for student devices growing, Rankin needed more comprehensive asset management...
5 Key Goals for School Facility Management Leaders
Dealing with work orders and repairs every day can feel like you're trapped in one big hamster wheel—as soon as one job gets completed, another pops up. It's an endless cycle that many K-12 facility managers and their teams can't seem to get out of. So...
Connecting IT and Maintenance Support at Eagle Mountain-Saginaw School District
Background Eagle Mountain-Saginaw is located just north of Fort Worth, Texas. The public school district teaches approximately 22,000 students across 29 different buildings and campuses. Kirk Murdock, the Senior Technology Officer at Eagle Mountain-Saginaw, is part of the 14 IT technicians that manage the district’s technology infrastructure....
Facility Safety Checklist for Schools
What do the world’s tallest building, a seven-course meal, and a family vacation all have in common? They all started with a plan. Whether that plan is a blueprint, a recipe, or an itinerary, each requires meticulous planning and preparation. Maintaining your K-12 school facilities might...
How to Create a Year-Round Preventive Maintenance Schedule for Your Schools
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." —Benjamin Franklin He must've been onto something because that old saying still holds up today. Any experienced facility manager or technician understands the importance of preventive maintenance in K-12 schools. It's an integral part of routine...
Ranking the Best Times to Conduct a School Inventory Audit
Conducting a school inventory audit is far different from conducting an SMB or enterprise audit. School schedules are on a completely different timeline than the standard fiscal year. This means that your inventory audits need to be conducted at entirely different times. The big problem here is...
Downers Grove Revamps Their Facilities Workflow with a Unified Platform
Downers Grove has implemented their first dedicated facility and maintenance workflow solution, using powerful tools from Incident IQ. ...
6 Challenges of Homegrown Inventory Management (and Why Your District’s Is Likely To Fail)
"Fine, I'll just do it myself." If you work in IT, this thought has likely crossed your mind at some point. It can be incredibly frustrating when it seems like you're the only person who knows how something needs to be done, but you don't have...
How Edmonds School District Empowered Their IT Technicians to “Become Superheroes” with Asset Management from Incident IQ
Background Edmonds School District is one of the top ten largest districts in Washington state. Currently, Edmonds teaches approximately 21,000 students between 34 schools, which range from pre-K to high school—and that’s a lot of students and technology to oversee for Jordan Suver’s technology team. Edmonds’ previous...
Stretch Your School Budget: Creative Solutions for K-12 IT Teams
How far can you stretch a dollar? School districts constantly ask themselves this, and it's especially true for K-12 IT teams. If your school district lacks the funds to support your IT department properly, then you'll have to get resourceful—but that's always easier said than...
5 Considerations When Choosing K-12 Help Desk Software
The help desk software you choose is going to dictate a lot of what your day-to-day responsibilities look like as an IT professional in K-12. Without workflow automations, you’ll be stuck assigning tasks and responding to tickets manually. Without views and filters, all your tickets get...
15 Funniest posts of the /K12sysadmin subreddit
Not everyone understands the struggles of working in IT. What about working in IT for K-12 schools? Now that’s a very niche group. We hear your pain, IT folks. From being asked to fix the microwave, telling teachers to try turning their devices on and off,...
Mastering Inventory Audit Procedures for K-12 School Districts
“Inventory Auditing”. Just hearing the phrase is enough to give most K-12 teams a headache—but what is it that really makes managing inventory so frustrating? For most school districts, it’s the planning, scheduling, and procedures involved. Unless your district has mastered their inventory audit procedures, it’s easy for vital...
4 Tips for Finding the Best SIS for Your School District
Each year, millions of students enter and exit K-12—and it’s up to your school district to make sure their student data stays organized year-over-year from kindergarten through high school graduation. Between their grades, teachers, assigned homeroom, academic history, transcripts, attendance records, medical records, financial information, and...
Venus Independent School District “Finds the Fix” with Incident IQ
Introduction Venus ISD is located 25 miles south of Dallas, Texas. The district consists of four campuses—primary through high school. At 2,300 students, Venus ISD is a growing school district, as approximately 100 students a year join the district. For Daniel Domain, Technology Director at Venus ISD,...
How To Choose the Best MDM for Your School District
What’s more difficult than managing a classroom full of K-12 students? For most IT teams, it’s trying to manage the tens of thousands of devices that those kids are using each and every day. Despite the knowledge and skill your IT agents may possess, managing mobile...
How To Prevent Asset Theft in K-12 Schools
Each fall, millions of K-12 students return to school with their backpacks, textbooks, school supplies, and assigned school laptops in tow. Which one of these items do you think is the most likely to get lost or stolen? The answer should be pretty clear—both mobile and...
How To Extend the Lifespan of Your School’s Chromebooks
There’s nothing sadder than a Chromebook’s 8th birthday. After all, that’s when it reaches its AUE (Auto Update Expiration). These automatic device updates provide Chromebooks with the latest features that keep the device’s operating system, browser, and hardware secure. So what happens when your Chromebook stops...
- 1
- 2
