About the Firm

KIPP STL is a collection of elementary and middle school public charter schools. Backed by the national KIPP Foundation, KIPP STL’s mission is to ensure all families in the city will have access to a world class network of public schools that will prepare children with the academic skills and character traits necessary to thrive in college and in life. At the time of this project, they had nearly 110 full-time staff members and over 900 students, with plans to support over 2500 students in 6 schools.

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges with KIPP was doing all of the project work needed over the summer months when school was not in session to ensure as little disruption as possible. Going into the 2015-2016 school year, KIPP experienced 100% growth and opened two additional schools in the city. They needed new equipment and a complete migration from Google Apps for Education to Microsoft. Another challenge with KIPP was the need for connectivity. They also did not have standardized AV equipment.

Impact Made

GadellNet implemented standard and consistent wireless internet connectivity across all school campuses and the new regional office. The drive was to create a unified experience so that staff and visitors to each campus had a consistent and predictable network to utilize. All existing infrastructure was refreshed to ensure successful implementations of new enterprise printer/copies and a complete phone system refresh.

GadellNet also worked with School Operations to create a standard for classroom AV setups and worked with a local AV specialist firm to implement these across all 4 schools. All employee’s computers were updated to laptop standards by GadellNet for engineering firms of their size. This tech update, suggested by the Consulting Services Team, allows employees to take their devices home or anywhere else on the go. As with all other clients, GadellNet offers 24/7 on and off-site support. GadellNet staffs an IT professional at KIPP STL’s main headquarters two times per week to ensure face time with their staff.

The next projects on the table include migrating to a cloud-based financial accounting solution, improving the server and domain infrastructure, and lots of professional development for staff regarding Google Apps and Google Classroom.  GadellNet is building a new annual budget and 3 year roadmap for all technology for KIPP STL to ensure that the region is ready for years of continued growth and maturity.

Key Wins:

• Align KIPP STL technology with school and regional priorities
• Invest strategically in hardware, software, and applications
• Conform to industry best practices » Identify and manage security risks
• Develop connectivity and mobility strategies
• Create and implement disaster recovery/business continuity strategy
• Efficiently and effectively allocate IT resources
• Proactively train staff on applications and applicable technology