Case Studies

Hancock County School District

Education Accountability Made Simple

The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law in the United States on January 8, 2002. The Act is the most sweeping reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) since ESEA was enacted in 1965. It redefines the federal role in K-12 education and will help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers. It is based on four basic principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents and an emphasis on proven teaching methods.

According to the No Child Left Behind Act, US schools are required to align accountability systems with new federal requirements. School districts need to provide extensive reports on everything from student demographics, attendance, discipline, grades, schedules, health, immunization, emergency, parent/guardian information and more. The software program used by Hancock County to capture data and create reports is graphic-based and suffers from performance issues when running on a local client or workstation. By using Propalms TSE from Propalms, Hancock County Schools were able to move to a server-based computing model saving time, money and much needed resources while increasing the performance of existing reporting software and utilizing existing PCs.

Up and Running in No Time

With TSE, faculty and administrators discovered they did not have to install software on all individual PC workstations or worry about sufficient PC power to support the heavy, graphical reporting application. Hancock County can now configure the application on its Windows servers and immediately deploy to any Windows-based PC using only a web browser. The new model allows for existing and new applications to be simply and quickly rolled out to all users in the county. The school district no longer struggles to provide shared access to real-time data or deals with compromised performance. The solution also eliminates help-desk issues and troubleshooting questions from the staff.

"We evaluated both Citrix® and TSE software and found that TSE was much simpler to use and gave us all the functionality of Citrix® at a fraction of the cost" said Keith Rich, IT Director for Hancock County Schools. "TSE software is so easy to use that our staff was up and running in no time. The simplicity of the solution, combined with local printing capability as well as extreme cost-effectiveness, were all factors in our decision to implement the new server-based computing model."

Used by Education Institutions Worldwide

TSE from Propalms is an application management platform that allows both expert and novice IT managers to centrally deploy and manage Windows-based applications. In the past year, Propalms TSE from Propalms has garnered significant worldwide attention as a simple, intelligent and cost-effective alternative to Citrix® MetaFrame. Hundreds of educational institutions around the world have deployed Propalms solutions to help extend the life of existing PCs and applications and reduce IT spend through centralized computing.

According to Nate Griffin, President of Stormwood, Inc., a Premier reseller of TSE and the channel partner involved with Hancock County Schools, "TSE is an intelligent alternative to Citrix® for most educational organizations. Propalms offers educational pricing which is extremely attractive to many school districts where recent budget cuts have made adopting any new technology a challenge. Propalms software makes central deployment and management of server-based applications not only simple and intelligent, but significantly more cost-effective. If a school district needs more 'bang for the buck' this is a sure-fire way to get it. We never hesitate to recommend the TSE solution."

The Challenge

Hancock County School District wanted to provide administrators and faculty with quick, easy access to its existing reporting software and be able to share information in real time to meet new federal guidelines for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act all while working within budget constraints.

The Solution

By centralizing the reporting capability, Hancock County Schools eliminated performance issues encountered when running the application locally, lowered maintenance costs, reduced time-intensive upgrades and training, and extended the lives of existing PCs.

The Benefits

By moving to a centralized computing model, school administrators can gather information and data quickly from teachers and meet new government accountability guidelines. With improved reporting software performance, teachers are now productive and are not burdened with local client maintenance issues. Existing environments and infrastructure are used to eliminate any mass disruption or forklift upgrades. Training for the TSE software is quick and easy allowing everyone to be more productive immediately.

Customer Testimonial

"We evaluated both Citrix® and TSE software and found that TSE was much simpler to use and gave us all the functionality of Citrix® at a fraction of the cost. TSE software is so easy to use that our staff was up and running in no time. The simplicity of the solution, combined with local printing capability as well as extreme cost-effectiveness, were all factors in our decision to implement the new server-based computing model."

Keith Rich, IT Director for Hancock County Schools

Executive Summary

The Hancock County School district in rural Georgia had to meet new federal guidelines to remain compliant with the No Child Left Behind Act. One of the stipulations of the act is to provide the federal government with a variety of reports and data related to student results. The software application used to gather the information and create the accountability reports was run in a distributed model on local PCs and workstations and suffered from major performance issues. With the new server-based computing model, Hancock County is able to be more productive, share data and information in real time and meet the new federal guidelines efficiently and cost-effectively.

"TSE software is so easy to use that our staff was up and running in no time."