Helping a School District Stay Active and Connected
The Bethlehem Area School District (BASD) believes that all children have a desire to learn and grow. With 22 schools and three operational buildings, BASD provides a well-rounded K-12 experience that allows students to explore their interests and become productive members of the community. Additionally, BASD offers a full continuum of special education programs and related services that address a broad range of students' individual needs. With 14,000 students currently enrolled, BASD is the sixth largest school district in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Challenge
With a campus that is ever-increasing in its connectedness, Bethlehem Area School District (BASD) had reached a critical point at which the district’s Active Directory infrastructure was in need of upgrades to not only improve its support and security, but to ensure that it would support integration with the increasing number of applications needed to deliver services to students and the community.
Most importantly, these upgrades would allow BASD to update their federated services implementation so that users could log into third party-applications securely. Having worked with Weidenhammer on an ongoing basis, the district reached out to us for consultative and engineering support.
Solutions
As a provider of consultative and engineering solutions to K12 and higher-education organizations, Weidenhammer was uniquely qualified to help BASD scope this project in accordance with their own goals.
As a first step, Weidenhammer upgraded the district’s Active Directory domain. Moving to the latest version of Microsoft’s Active Directory made it easier to organize the district’s users, computers, and more, while taking advantage of the latest in security, performance, and maintenance improvements. Along the way, it created a more robust server environment, which was in line with the district’s initiative to create a more resilient network and learning environment.
Weidenhammer also customized the log-on pages for third-party applications using Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) to simplify the process for users. Users might see the district’s logo, a graphic that represented the district, and fields that aligned to the district’s terminology and preferences. Throughout each step, Weidenhammer implemented best practices so that the district would be able to maximize security, efficiency, and performance.
Results
BASD recognized that upgrading the district’s domain to the latest version would improve network performance, maintenance efficiency and effectiveness, and its overall organizational security posture. In addition, this project also created a more robust and resilient server and virtual environment – used for networking and learning – that will be able to evolve as the district’s systems and needs change over time.
Now, the district has a much more secure infrastructure, best practices incorporated into its domain, and safe access to necessary third-party applications for faculty and staff.
Best of all, the reliability of the network login process allows students and staff to interact with their many applications and network resources seamlessly and securely, providing a notably more positive learning experience.
