Keeping Students On-Track with Proper Tech Support

Minimizing Student Downtime with Dedicated Service and Support

School districts across the country grew closer to a 1:1 ratio of device to student during the pandemic, which in many ways will continue to be enormously beneficial for both teachers and students with the learning tools now at their fingertips. But one issue that has been pervasive in this new ed-tech revolution is that of maintenance: teachers report spending far more time playing tech support than they anticipated. And technical glitches can cause distractions, delays, and inequality gaps for students in their learning.

Device-as-a-Service (Daas) programs address these issues through professional, consistently-scheduled device management—particularly updates and repairs. This takes the pressure off teachers, while cutting down the amount of time that students lose out on learning while struggling with defective devices or awaiting repairs. Authorized Service Providers have the added benefit of being able to update and repair devices from major manufacturers without voiding the warranty. Such a holistic tech support system helps equip schools under their budget and time constraints.

Close the Learning Gap

Over the last two years, numerous studies have confirmed that students suffer when school districts can’t provide them with adequate tech support. In a recent study conducted by the RAND Corporation, 20 percent of teachers expressed that they were struggling with technical problems, including students lacking internet access or having issues with their devices at home. In schools that were identified as lower-income, just 30 percent of teachers reported that nearly all of their students had home internet access. Data continues to reveal that, while students across the board had lower test scores this year than normal, the students coming from lower-income demographics had significantly lower test scores.

Most students are back to in-person instruction now, but many ed-tech tools that were adopted during the pandemic are being incorporated into classroom and hybrid instruction, including e-learning tools, test-taking tools, and portals for teacher-student communication. The RAND study advised that policymakers work to provide every student with internet access, and to support teachers in knowing how to manage the tech issues in their classrooms—particularly in low-income and rural districts. Congress recently approved over $120 billion in funding for schools, including for investing in better education technology.

Take the Burden Off of Teachers

Teachers across the country have expressed fatigue and even serious burnout over the last two years due to the enormity of what’s been expected from them. Educators have expressed frustration over what district-level decisionmakers decide to spend money on and issue as policy, without understanding if those decisions will be feasible for the teachers who will have to carry them out. Common issues for teachers have included being ordered to use certain software without knowing whether it will be useful to students or burdensome, or being supplied with devices that are unreliable or not intuitive to use.

Bringing in a DaaS provider to oversee the process of equipping schools with the appropriate technology takes the pressure off of teachers to take on the tech support role, allowing them to focus on helping their students to catch up and readjust. Service providers are also better-equipped to understand the full picture of teaching and learning with ed-tech tools; they can anticipate common problems that administrators may not be aware of, and recommend devices and software that will fit the needs of a unique student population.

Prevent Major Disasters

Cybersecurity breaches are shutting down entire school districts at an alarmingly increasing rate. Microsoft recently reported that the education sector is currently the biggest target of malware. In many ways, schools are easy targets: teachers and students don’t know how to protect their endpoint devices, and districts are investing very little of their IT budgets in cybersecurity measures. Ransomware attacks have taken over central district networks, revealed students’ personal information, and shut down operations for days at a time—pushing students further behind. Some administrators, eager to get students back into school, have not learned from their mistakes, and leave themselves open to further attacks.

Investing in cybersecurity is essential for schools, at this point. The stakes are too high to not have ongoing security monitoring, regular software updates, and rapid response plans when a breach is detected. School budgets tend to be frustratingly limited, but it’s more costly to have to pay for repairs after a hack than it is to invest in a management service that will prevent them.

Vanguard’s Leading Approach

At Vanguard, we listen to your goals and design leasing/procurement options that are customized to your specific needs, requirements, and budget. We work closely with numerous institutions in the education sector, and understand the funding constraints that they operate under. We strongly believe that our Asset Managed Solutions are unparalleled in our marketplace; we track and monitor assets assigned to users or locations, deployment status, collect signed documents for receipts, use policies, or security requirements, and see real-time inventory and asset utilization. We also offer comprehensive reporting capabilities to share information with other stakeholders and flexible API integration to exchange data with other key systems.

Vanguard is a proud partner of HP, and as an HP Authorized Service Provider (HASP), Vanguard offers professional technical service and hardware repair for HP warranty and non-warranty service issues.  Our experienced technicians are factory trained and certified to service a long list of HP devices built for education, saving you the time and expense that would otherwise be required to send your devices back to the manufacturer for maintenance.

Contact us to speak with one of our experts about equipping your school with the devices it needs.