Meet: Quakertown Community School District
Quakertown Community School District’s mission is to promote its students to become lifelong learners, who are able to pursue academic excellence, exhibit personal responsibility, provide service to the community, and respect oneself, others and the environment. In preparing for a rapidly changing 21st Century society, our students enter our schools to learn and leave to serve.
And as the education environment changes, school districts must adapt to support the new complexities that are being introduced. And with 4,800 students spread across 10 schools Quakertown is no stranger to this reality. Coupled with the age old challenge of tight budgets and its mission critical to ensure every dollar makes the maximum impact. So when these precious dollars are invested in assets to support this new environment managing them effectively and not losing track of them is paramount.
New Asset Management Challenges
Historically assets, like Chromebooks, were assigned to classrooms where they were used but never left the building. COVID has ushered in a new normal. Assets are now regularly leaving the school grounds which is new territory for many but not Quakertown. They’ve been assigning assets individually, 1:1 to students for years and, according to Director of Information Technology Joseph Kuzo, have “tried or looked at just about every system to assign and check in their assets that you can imagine.” And they’ve yet to find one that can meet their needs. Including their current system, Asset Panda.
When sharing her experience with Asset Panda you’ll hear Technology Office Manager Stephanie Kolb say things like sluggish, clunky, laggy, hard to search, very difficult, and not user friendly. In fact the issues were so severe they decided it was an obstacle to them assigning 3,000+ devices to students at the beginning of the school year and worked around the very asset management system that they were supposed to rely on.
Instead they used a spreadsheet. It had a list of the 3,000 students with a specific device serial number next to each. As they assigned each student a device they would first need to find that name on their list, then carefully review the serial number next to it to ensure each was getting the appropriate item. Weeks later, when this was complete, they’d upload this list into Asset Panda. In the meantime things had already been breaking, needed to be swapped out or serviced and the data was no longer accurate.
Asset Panda was now just an incomplete, out of date repository. As Stephanie tells it, “it couldn’t move at the speed we operate at, instead of being part of the solution it had become part of the problem.” At the end of the day it just couldn’t meet their needs. This was a massive issue they just couldn’t afford. Just ask the folks at the Greenville, South Carolina public schools who lost more than 4,000 Chromebooks with a value of over $1.2 million dollars.
Enter Flex Asset Solutions
So the search for a new solution began, and they evaluated the entire field. All the products they found that met their criteria were far too expensive given the constraints of running a school district. Those that were affordable didn’t offer the features set required to meet Quakertown’s needs. Until they found Flex Asset Solutions.
Flex Asset Solutions delivered the best of both worlds. It had the capabilities to support Quakertown’s needs for speed, efficiency and accuracy and a rich set of features including the ability to scan student ids, scan and assign any asset, as well as track service, maintenance, warranty and insurance information. At the same time, it delivered these capabilities at a price point that wasn’t astronomical like so many of the competing solutions Quakerstown saw in the market.
Getting started with Flex
Given the previous struggles with Asset Panda much of Quakertown’s data was left incomplete or inaccurate. To prepare for adopting a new solution Stephanie and her team spent multiple weeks verifying and tracking down the missing details.
Once that was complete, getting Flex Asset Solutions up and running was simple and streamlined every step of the way. They worked closely with the Flex Support group throughout the process who quickly facilitated the imports for each type of device as the data became available.The collective team easily had the product set up and ready to go weeks before schools were scheduled to be back in session.
When we asked Stephanie on a scale of 1 (not easy) to 10 (easiest) how easy it was to get up and running she responded with a 10. After Joe reminded her that nothing is perfect and everything can be improved we settled on a 9 ;-).
Managing the new normal with ease
As the start of the school year neared the team felt ready and confident for what awaited. And while we might try and tell you how it went it’s probably just best to hear it straight from Joe.
“I can’t tell you how much your system has supported our mass distribution of devices this summer and start of our year. We could have never accomplished this without Flex. You really need to get your name out there. By far no inventory system has compared to yours and we have gone through a lot of them.”
Joe Kuzo
Director of Technology
Quakertown Community School District
When asked about the differences to prior years the excitement in voices is palpable. “Scan the student badge, scan any Chromebook and you are done!. And there’s nothing to upload later, the system is tracking the assignments in real time.” That’s how you can deploy devices to 4,800 students quickly, efficiently and accurately.
One of Joe’s final comments was “I just don’t understand why every school district in the country isn’t using you.”
Meet Flex Assets Solutions for Education
Maybe you haven’t heard of us before, but we sure are glad you have now! As you’ve heard first hand from the field Flex has developed a solution that can move with speed and scale school districts need.
And with devices regularly leaving school grounds and 1:1 device assignment required for thousands of students having a solution you can depend on has never been more imperative than now in the new normal.
Are you struggling with your current system? Do you have confidence that is up to date and accurate? Do you worry about becoming the next Greenville County School District? Joe and Stephanie don’t and neither should you.
So if your system isn’t meeting the 1:1 needs of the now normal we’d invite you to be the next one to experience the benefits of Flex Asset Solutions first hand.Full featured yet at a price point that can fit within a school budget we’re confident we can help you increase efficiency, improve accuracy and minimize losses.
And with a free trial plus even more exciting school district specific features on the way there’s never been a better time to learn more about what Flex Asset Solutions can do for you.
Ready to see what Flex Asset Solutions can do for you?
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Flex is proud to have worked with Quakertown Community School District and its mission driven team since 2021.
