District 49 is a school system in eastern Colorado Springs. With 22 campuses including a high-performing blended learning school, management of usernames and passwords became too cumbersome for students, teachers, and staff to continue. The district trialed in-house single sign-on but quickly recognized the need for a more versatile and flexible third-party solution.
After speaking with fellow Colorado districts, District 49 chose ClassLink to provide their users with a single sign-on experience that would allow access to school programs and network files from any device and any location. The culmination of easy access and quick, efficient set-up enabled the district to lessen the burden of managing passwords, freeing teachers and IT staff to focus on tasks that actually matter.
ClassLink was first rolled out at the Springs Studio for Academic Success (SSAE), District 49’s blended learning environment offering educational opportunities for students all over the state of Colorado. Due to the blended learning model, the need to organize digital learning resources and create a consistent, simple way for students and teachers to access those applications, was key.
The SSAE community is benefitting from single sign-on. Parents, students, and teachers now log in to their digital learning environment with ease. With a single username and password, students enter ClassLink Launchpad and a dashboard view of all their available resources. No more guessing which applications are approved. Password reset inquiries have dropped dramatically, giving the district more freedom to focus on fidelity of application use, something David Knoche, Principal at Springs Studio for Academic Success shared as the next essential step.
Education, PreK-12
District 49 spans 133 square miles of Colorado and has a total student enrollment of 21,000 and staff of 1,000 across 22 sites.
District 49 leaders recognized that teachers and staff were burdened by time consuming password reset and troubleshooting tasks. To recover the time student support coaches spent managing passwords, and to simplify the login process for students, District 49 looked to single sign-on.
The district spent 18 months researching options for a cloud-based single sign-on solution and speaking to local schools. The ability to provide access to digital resources from any location, device, and time were important motivators for District 49.
