Arizona school district delivers education on demand, increases student achievement with access strategy
Fort Lauderdale, FL — January 12, 2004 — In an attempt to provide equal access to educational resources for its teachers, administrators and students in support of the No Child Left Behind Act, Snowflake Unified School District (SUSD), a rural school district in Northeastern Arizona with 2,500 students, has deployed Citrix's MetaFrame Presentation Server.
Citrix said the access strategy could provide the necessary parties with on-demand, centralized access to Web-based and client/server applications and information.
Signed into law in January 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act raises student achievement requirements for K-12 public schools throughout the United States and increases accountability for teachers and school administrators. The Act is based on four basic education reform principles: stronger accountability for results, record flexibility for states and communities, concentrated resources on proven education methods and more choices for parents.
SUSD said the access infrastructure has helped the it to achieve its goal of improving the student-to-computer ratio by enabling the its small information technology (IT) staff to more support an expanded network of 1,500 computers located across six schools and central administration offices.
Prior to Citrix, SUSD said it required twice as many IT staff to support fewer computers. With the MetaFrame Presentation Server, SUSD has improved overall productivity to keep pace with IT issues and avoid technology disruptions in the classrooms. SUSD said it has also reduced its cost of IT ownership by deploying the latest educational applications over thin-client terminals.
"New federal and state education standards have brought significant issues to the forefront for our district, including the need for greater equity of access to information," said Greg Wyman, superintendent of Snowflake Unified School District. "Faced with a limited budget, hiring additional IT staff to manage and expand our entire district-wide system was not an option. Therefore, using the MetaFrame Presentation Server to centrally manage applications and resources is important to us as we focus our time and resources on closing the student achievement gap."
SUSD explained that with the MetaFrame Presentation Server its students, faculty and administrative staff have secure, role-based access to the most current applications, including the PLATO curriculum package and Ainsworth typing program, from any location or access device and over any network connection.
Additionally, in support of greater accountability, parents can now access their own child's grades to monitor performance and ensure that any issues are immediately addressed with the teacher.
Gary Sims, IT and service director of Snowflake Unified School District, commented, "Now our students, teachers and staff can access the latest applications on existing hardware, which frees up the IT budget to purchase additional computers instead of needing to recycle older machines every few years. The next phase is to enable continuous learning by offering students remote access from home through Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server."
Citrix said its access infrastructure is used by nine of the 10 largest school districts, as defined by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and eight of the top 10 technology school districts throughout the United States, as ranked by District Administration Magazine.
