Jeff Davis County Schools modernizes a rural school district with Google Apps for Education

Before Google, it would take our IT service team 21 days to close a service ticket. Now, it only takes our service team three hours or less to close out a ticket and we have decreased the overall amount of tickets that come in. This encourages our teaching staff to implement more technology in the classroom, now that they trust that the technology is reliable that any issues can be solved quickly.

Keith Osburn, technology and special programs director, Jeff Davis County Schools

Challenge

Like many rural districts, the schools face the challenge of making the most of the funding they receive. The district’s IT and administrative team does its due diligence whenever investing in new tools, but when it came to Google Apps for Education, much of this vetting was complete. Teachers and staff already used Gmail and Google Apps, and encouraged the district to standardize on Google.

Solution

After a trial period of testing Google and Microsoft products, the IT team surveyed teachers and staff about the system they preferred. The results were unanimous for Google. In 2008, Jeff Davis County Schools launched Google Apps district-wide and introduced 2,200 Chromebooks. Today, the school district considers itself a “Google ecosystem,” with staff, teachers and students all using Google Apps to work in new ways.