Giving 21,000 students secure access to online learning in Wisconsin’s Fourth-Largest District

Green Bay Area Public Schools, the fourth-largest district in Wisconsin, serves 21,000 students with a robust 1:1 technology program, providing seamless digital access both in the classroom and remotely. 

Keeping 21,000 students and their data safe online was critical when Green Bay Area Public Schools shifted to remote learning during emergency school closures. Teachers were inundated by offers for new and free resources to support them through an unprecedented worldwide move to remote learning.

So many new and unvetted tools during a tumultuous time could have put student security at risk. However, with ClassLink’s SSO platform in place, Joshua Patchak, Executive Director of Technology and Information, says staff, teachers, and families could rest assured students (and their data) were protected.

Patchak says with ClassLink; students can only access resources that adhere to the district’s strict guidelines around safety, privacy, and alignment to the curriculum. “The portal allows us to post which apps have been vetted, which are approved for use,” he explains.

Adopted by Green Bay to support their 1:1 program, ClassLink’s SSO functionality was already removing barriers to teaching and learning long before their switch to remote learning. The platform reduced the time it took for students to log in and access resources, giving teachers more time to spend with students. Cumulatively, ClassLink helps save hundreds of hours a day in this district.”

For instance, Patchak says before ClassLink, automating rostering to save teachers time was incredibly expensive and challenging. Using ClassLink’s OneSync provisioning with ClassLink Roster Server (which follows the OneRoster standard) helps. With this set up the district can provision accounts to roster students in third-party applications using just the data in their SIS—at no extra cost.

Once they’d addressed access and rostering issues, the district moved on to using ClassLink Analytics. Looking at detailed usage data for all of the district’s digital resources helped them understand students’ activities and habits.

With so many benefits, Patchak says he can’t imagine going back to what it was like before ClassLink. “We would have chaos if we went backward and no longer had ClassLink available for students and staff.