Bureau Valley CUSD Protects Students and Data While Maximizing Budget and Efficiency

Bureau Valley Community Unit School District (CUSD) in Manlius, Illinois, serves approximately 900 students and 180 faculty and staff. It operates on a 1:1 Chromebook model using Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals. 

“If it plugs in or has a battery, it’s our responsibility,” says Ryan Carlson, Assistant Tech Director. The district’s lean, two-person technology department is responsible for everything from network configuration to end-user support—and many, many things in between. 

“Cloud Monitor does everything you want and more. The price is amazing, and the amount of time we save has paid for itself many times over. We can keep our students safe while respecting their privacy, shut down phishing attempts, and protect PII all from one platform. For us, it’s a no-brainer.”

— Ryan Carlson, Assistant Tech Director, Bureau Valley CUSD

To proactively manage Google Workspace security risks, protect sensitive data, and ensure student safety, Bureau Valley CUSD relies on ManagedMethods’ Cloud Monitor.

Challenges

For Ryan and his colleague, manually sifting through the Google Admin console and GoGuardian to investigate incidents was a massive undertaking. 

“We had been relying on GoGuardian for content filtering and student monitoring, but the student safety alerts were an awful, messy disaster. The number of false positives made it very unreliable. Cloud Monitor gives us reliable, contextual alerts, especially in Google Docs and Gmail, which has been a game-changer for addressing student safety risks promptly while balancing privacy.”

— Ryan Carlson, Assistant Tech Director, Bureau Valley CUSD

While Bureau Valley CUSD licensed GoGuardian Admin for web filtering and safety monitoring, Ryan quickly found that it was not effective for monitoring inappropriate content in school-provided Google apps, such as Gmail, Docs, and Drive. 

His process for investigating student safety and data security concerns meant relying on word-of-mouth reports, then spending excessive time searching through Google Vault. Not only was this an inefficient and tedious process, but it was also overly time-consuming.

Furthermore, GoGuardian Admin generated an overwhelming number of false positives, making it unreliable and adding noise to their already busy workload. 

“GoGuardian’s Smart Alerts work for the more intense risks. Anything else, you have to go to the flagged activity page, which is an awful, messy disaster. It grabs all metadata on any page, including any URL that comes up on page one of a Google search result,” Ryan explains. “This means that kids are getting flagged for obscene things when, in reality, it’s absolutely nothing. If we reported kids who were flagged, everyone would be in detention. It’s very unreliable.”

This lack of precision made it nearly impossible to stay on top of true student safety risks. The team knew they needed a solution that could more reliably use context to cut out some of the noise.

On top of the student safety issues, the threat of increasing cyberattacks and phishing emails added urgency to their search for a more comprehensive, precise, and time-saving solution.

Results

When Ryan attended one of ManagedMethods’ speaking sessions at a local tech event, he became intrigued by what Cloud Monitor could do.

“Kids know that emails are permanent, so now they’re using Google Docs as chat rooms and using coded text. Cloud Monitor provides us with the visibility we need into Gmail, Docs, and other files to balance student safety while still keeping their privacy in mind.”

— Ryan Carlson, Assistant Tech Director, Bureau Valley CUSD

“The biggest benefit I saw right away was the Google Drive and Gmail visibility. Kids know that emails are permanent, so now they’re using Google Docs as chat rooms and using coded text. We just can’t look through all of that while still keeping their privacy in mind,” says Ryan. “With Cloud Monitor, we get an alert with context when there’s a real student safety concern. The platform provides a balance between student autonomy and safety.”

Cloud Monitor turned his previous reactive process into a proactive strategy. Rather than manually researching and weeding through false positives, the automated risk alerts save Ryan time and directly impact student safety. “Cloud Monitor has blown our expectations out of the water,” Ryan notes. “I thought there would be more false positives, or it would miss things. Nothing is 100% perfect, but it does a great job and provides us with needed context.”

Cloud Monitor’s context-aware scanning capability has proven significantly better than GoGuardian Admin by greatly reducing false positives and providing actionable intelligence. This improved accuracy lets Ryan prioritize issues quickly and triage alerts to the proper school resources.

“I used to think we were going to have to hire an additional admin to help with the workload, but with the time we save with Cloud Monitor, we don’t have to.”

— Ryan Carlson, Assistant Tech Director, Bureau Valley CUSD

Most importantly, the platform helps them fulfill their core mission of ensuring student safety. Now, counselors and administrators get urgent self-harm or threats of violence alerts directly. Even as ESSER funding sunsets, Ryan finds it easy to justify the investment. “With funding being cut and enrollment going down, we’re making the most out of our dollars. We’ve had to defend our investment in Cloud Monitor a little more, but it’s still a no-brainer for us.” 

From a cybersecurity perspective, the platform is instrumental in alerting the team to phishing threats, protecting staff from account compromises. It also provides clear visibility into suspicious logins and risky third-party apps.

“I used to think we were going to have to hire an additional admin to help with the workload,” says Ryan. “But with the time we save with Cloud Monitor, we don’t have to.”

Cloud Monitor helps Bureau Valley CUSD operate with a high degree of confidence and protection while still upholding digital privacy standards. “Cloud Monitor does everything you want and more. The price is amazing, and the amount of time we save has paid for itself many times over,” Ryan shares. “We can keep our students safe while respecting their privacy, shut down phishing attempts, and protect PII all from one platform. For us, it’s a no-brainer.”

Want to learn more about improving your district’s cybersecurity, student safety, and classroom engagement?

Get started with your free Google Workspace and/or Microsoft 365 security and safety audit today.

The post A “No-Brainer” Investment: Proactive Google Safety and Security with Cloud Monitor appeared first on ManagedMethods Cybersecurity, Safety & Compliance for K-12.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from ManagedMethods Cybersecurity, Safety & Compliance for K-12 authored by Katie Fritchen. Read the original post at: https://managedmethods.com/blog/customer-story-k12-bureau-valley-cusd-il/