Alma School District

Improves Their Wireless GPA

Despite increasingly widespread adoption of technologies in virtually every aspect of K-12 education, significant challenges are preventing widespread effective implementation. Wi-Fi is vital to the modernization of school curriculums and long-term success of educators. The next generation classroom of wireless devices allows everyone to thrive and creates a richer learning experience. Students and teachers today are using 2-3 devices and need a network that can support these devices throughout the school day. With RUCKUS® being the first to market with 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi, schools are on their way to future-proofing their network.

Challenge

Located in Alma, Arkansas, Alma School District serves 3,300 students and 400 in faculty and staff. Covering over 101 square miles, ASD supports four different campuses with K-12 schools. Like many school districts, ASD was struggling with their legacy network. With the rapid increase in mobile devices and integrated online learning, their existing network was not performing well. The density and connection just wasn’t there and the frustration was mounting. The IT team had to constantly restart the controllers to get them working again making the management process exhausting. Further driving the district to a network upgrade was the challenge of state wide testing online. They needed reliable Wi-Fi that wouldn’t interrupt learning.

“We did not have a robust enough connectivity nor in the right places. We survived last year with what we had, but knew we had to do better moving forward,” states David Woolly, Superintendent at Alma School District