Austin Discovery School (ADS) was envisioned by a group of parents, educators, and an educational psychologist who were brought together through their common interest in a Children’s Discovery Center. They opened in 2005, and today serve 400 students grades K-6, and plan on adding a middle school in the future.
The staff at ADS has one of the most difficult jobs on the planet—keeping children interested in learning. They pride themselves on creating socially and emotionally aware, confident, critical-thinkers and problem-solvers, through interactive, hands-on lessons and relevant project-based learning.
Great Expectations
The educators at ADS expect a lot from themselves and their students. So when they went looking for an IT provider, they had the same level of criteria. They were looking for an IT provider who could increase their staff’s productivity, reduce their downtime and improve their network performance. They chose RMK Consulting to handle their needs.
The Task At Hand
ADS was experiencing constant Wi-Fi outages, and when more than 30 devices were connected, the system was so slow and unresponsive that all would log off all devices. This commonly occurred when students were participating on online training. The system could only handle 10 devices at a time. This was totally unacceptable, and created many issues for both the teachers and their students.
RMK Consulting “Moved To The Head Of The Class.”
Our solution was to replace the school’s old D-LINK SOHO Wi-Fi access points, with faster, more robust Aerohive Access Points, and to upgrade their network with Cisco gigabit switches. This improved their connectivity, security, and created a load-balanced, mesh wireless network.
ADS now has a consistently solid, secure, and fast wireless network that can handle 100's of the school’s and BYOD (bring your own device) devices simultaneously.
Business Manager and COO for ADS, Lydie Jessin told us:
RMK has helped by resolving the lingering issues we had with IT. Before RMK Consulting came to help, our teachers were highly dissatisfied with our ability to connect to the network so they could use their IT tools. From an administration standpoint, RMK developed a successful 3-year IT plan that meets our needs and budget. They also make sure our IT is up and running after a storm or power outage. Plus RMK constantly monitors our server back-ups and set us up on the cloud.”
Lydie went on to say:
“Ron and the team at RMK always ‘go above and beyond the call of duty.’ Their team is flexible enough that when we ask them to change their days on site, they comply. We often experience ‘t has to be done now’ situations where they always jump in. (For instance during the latest STAAR testing for ESL.) Plus, I sometimes bring work home, and even with odd hours or on the weekends I can count on RMK to solve my problems if anything goes wrong.
The staff and administrators at ADS were so impressed and pleased with RMK, that they “promoted us to the head of the class” as their ongoing IT service provider!
If you need an IT provider who passes the toughest requirements and excels every time, call RMK Consulting. We’ll be happy to provide you a complimentary, no-cost IT assessment. Call 512-761-7652.
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