Case Study

Overview

With a strong focus on data governance, Fayette County Public Schools partners with Lightspeed Systems® to effectively manage their edtech ecosystem—in and outside of the classroom. Lightspeed’s Engagement & Impact solution provides Fayette County with a comprehensive, easy-to-use solution that ensures student data privacy, empowers teachers to manage devices within the classroom, and enables smart and informed edtech decision making.

Opportunity: scalable management of edtech investments and student data privacy in a large-scale 1:1 ecosystem

With the launch of their 1:1 device initiative in 2017, Fayette County Public Schools wanted to unlock the full potential the program could provide. In addition to increased student engagement and learning opportunities, the district sought to foster student responsibility and independence and bridge summer learning gaps through supplemental educational programs. However, Fayette County knew that ensuring student data privacy on the school-issued devices was going to be a challenge. “We knew from the beginning that we were going to be sending these devices home each day and over the summer, and because of FERPA and state regulations, we knew that we were going to need a filtering solution,” explained Jim Farmer, Chief Technology Officer.

In addition to robust filtering capabilities, Fayette County also wanted to help teachers effectively manage their classrooms in this new 1:1 setting. “The teachers were excited. But we needed to be able to provide teachers with some easy-to-use tools to manage all of these devices,” stated Farmer.

And finally, with a large-scale rollout consisting of more than 18,000 Chromebooks for students grades 2-12 across 24 campuses, Fayette County also needed streamlined tools and usage information to enable effective edtech management of devices and learning applications for the greatest instructional impact and return on investment. The need for visibility and transparency has become an even bigger priority for the district over the past few years. “We needed insight into where all these Chromebooks are going, what apps students are using, how long they are on them … All these things have become really important for us to analyze and make good decisions to ensure we aregetting a return on investment for the software,” stressed Farmer.

We needed insight into where all these Chromebooks are going, what apps students are using, how long they are on them … All these things have become really important for us to analyze and make good decisions to ensure we are getting a return on investment for the software.