School District Boosts Learning Environment with AI-Driven WLAN

Wireless networking is key to the learning process at North Canton City Schools (NCCS), a K-12 school district in Ohio serving over 4400 students and 650 staff. It enables easy access to web-hosted learning materials, lets students communicate while on the move, and is critical for online testing and boosting learning outcomes.

Overview


Company North Canton City Schools
Industry Education
Products used Wi-Fi AssuranceAP41
Region Americas
North Canton City Schools Hero
Customer Success At-a-glance

4,400+

Students

650+

Administrative Staff

Challenge

Recently, the number of connected devices across the school district began to grow exponentially thanks to a 1:1 computing initiative that required the deployment of over 5000 Chromebooks, coupled with a BYOD policy that allowed high school students to bring their own computers, tablets and smart phones. Unfortunately, NCCS’ existing wireless network, provided by Cisco Meraki, could not keep up. Like many school districts, NCCS had a challenge supporting a high density of devices in a consistent and reliable manner, and they had limited IT staff to spend time troubleshooting issues as they arose.

“Students were dissatisfied they couldn’t use personal devices and faculty were frustrated with poor Wi-Fi,” said John Fano, System Admin at NCCS. “The IT team was annoyed because we could not troubleshoot problems quickly and cost effectively. It was clear that we outgrew our WLAN and were in need of an upgrade.”

North Canton City Schools Challenge
Solution

The NCCS IT staff, in conjunction with their trusted partner Technology Engineering Group, explored alternative WLAN options. Ultimately, they chose the Mist Learning WLAN and deployed over 300 Mist AP41 Access Points, in conjunction with Mist’s Wi-Fi Assurance cloud service.

Mist is the first vendor in the industry to use AI to simplify Wi-Fi operations and troubleshooting through automation and insight.

Unique capabilities of the Mist platform include high density performance, visibility into the user experience, single-click root cause identification, dynamic packet capture (dPCAP), and simplified policy enforcement.

North Canton City Schools Solution
Outcome

With the Mist Learning WLAN in place, NCCS has successfully deployed Chromebooks for their 1:1 initiative and has been able to allow a BYOD policy for their students. They also have confidence that the wireless network can seamlessly support key online applications, such as Schoology LMS, eSchoolPLUS SIS and LanSchool.

In addition, as part of Hoover High School’s Video Productions and Broadcast Journalism program, NCCS has an educational television station, ncTV. To give students a real-world experience with live event production, the school has a “Mobile Storyteller” production studio on wheels. The school deployed the Mist Learning WLAN in the vehicle to foster collaboration and rapid production while they are working on large media files that require gigabit Wi-Fi. By leveraging the Mist solution, the IT team has been able to keep the network up and running with remote troubleshooting that eliminated the need to send engineers out in the field if a problem were to arise.

North Canton City Schools is now prepared for the future as more devices enter the campus and educational tools continue to evolve, helping to accelerate learning for the next generation of innovators.

North Canton City Schools Outcome
“It used to take hours or days tracing data and doing manual packet captures to fix wireless issues. Now solving client issues takes just minutes with Mist. In addition, with a single glance I can see exactly what level of service we are delivering to every student, teacher, administrator, and guest. We really value this new level of visibility into the user experience.”
John Fano System Admin, NCCS

Published November 2018