Cloud Monitor Delivers Fast, Accurate Alerts and Empowers School Staff to Support Students in Crisis

Moline-Coal Valley School District in Moline, Illinois, serves a community of approximately 7,200 students and 1,000 faculty and staff. The district operates on a 1:1 device model using Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals for collaboration, communication, and instruction. 

As the Director of Technology, Craig Reid leads the team responsible for securing the district’s digital environment, recognizing that modern defense requires vigilance across multiple platforms.

“Relying on Google Admin console and Vault for manual investigations is cumbersome and time-consuming. Cloud Monitor proactively alerts us to cybersecurity and student safety issues. It’s set up to route alerts to the proper resources to handle the situation, which not only saves us time but also ensures students are getting the support they need as soon as possible.”

— Craig Reid, Director of Technology, Moline-Coal Valley School District

Challenges

Before becoming ManagedMethods customers, Moline-Coal Valley’s IT team struggled to find an efficient solution for monitoring their Google Workspace domain. 

The district had been using Syscloud for backup with the compliance add-on. While Craig was impressed with its backup capabilities, the volume of false positives from the student alerts function was creating issues for his district.

“Syscloud’s backup capabilities are great, but the student safety monitoring portion felt a little underdeveloped. Switching to Cloud Monitor has significantly reduced the number of false positives we used to receive. It’s also fast to detect risks and very easy for our non-technical staff to use.”

— Craig Reid, Director of Technology, Moline-Coal Valley School District

“Syscloud’s backup capabilities are great. But, when it came to the safety monitoring portion, it felt a little underdeveloped. We were getting so many false positives that our principals were overwhelmed by the number of alerts,” Craig explains. Not only did this make the system unusable for safety monitoring purposes, it also meant that investigations had to be done manually. 

“Relying on Google Admin console and Vault to do investigations was cumbersome and time-consuming,” recalls Craig. “We also didn’t have a way to be proactive, but rather had to rely on word-of-mouth to be alerted to incidents.”

Student safety, the district’s paramount concern, was directly compromised by this reactive process. Between the deluge of false positives diluting real risks and the time it took to learn about and investigate them, some incidents went unaddressed.

“Cloud Monitor provides the most complete solution for compliance, managing third-party apps, and student safety monitoring that I’ve found on the market. It also has reporting capabilities that make it easy for our non-technical users to address student issues.”

— Craig Reid, Director of Technology, Moline-Coal Valley School District

While they use GoGuardian for content filtering and browser-level searches, they needed a reliable and consistent layer of protection inside their Google Workspace to detect student safety risks in Docs, Gmail, and Drives.

Results

Implementing Cloud Monitor transformed Moline-Coal Valley School District’s cybersecurity and student safety capabilities.

“Cloud Monitor provides the most complete solution for compliance, managing third-party apps, and student safety monitoring that I’ve found on the market,” Craig says. “It also has reporting capabilities that make it easy for our non-technical users to address student issues.”

Craig described how the team at ManagedMethods assisted with their initial setup during their 30-day free trial, which helped ensure success in their implementation. He also benefits from the free, periodic calls to audit their system to make sure it’s still helping them achieve their goals. 

“With Cloud Monitor, we can ensure that external bad actors are not compromising our staff and students’ accounts. And we have a clear and easy way to quarantine threats. The suspicious login activity report provides an excellent glimpse into accounts that could be compromised, and is now part of our daily checks.”

— Craig Reid, Director of Technology, Moline-Coal Valley School District

The impact on student safety was experienced almost immediately. Shortly after onboarding, Cloud Monitor flagged a critical student self-harm alert. “I directed the appropriate principal to the alert and, within a matter of minutes, we were able to get the appropriate resources to intervene,” recalls Craig. “That process did not exist prior to using Cloud Monitor.”

Importantly, the move to Cloud Monitor significantly reduced the number of false positive alerts they were receiving.

It’s also so easy to use that non-technical users are empowered to act on alerts that are flagged in their specific school buildings. This means that response is timely and tailored to the specific situation, which significantly improved their ability to provide critical resources to students in crisis.

This also frees up Craig’s technology team to focus on where their training and expertise lay—keeping the network running, maintaining technology services, and keeping the district’s data secure.

“Cloud Monitor is a great solution that quickly alerts us to issues that are going on in our Google Workspace domain and allows us to easily drill into investigating an incident and take action. It’s a powerful asset that is easy to use, which saves us time and keeps our students safe.”

— Craig Reid, Director of Technology, Moline-Coal Valley School District

While the district initially looked into ManagedMethods for student safety needs, they’ve since found that Cloud Monitor is also an essential tool for cybersecurity in their Google Workspace. 

“With Cloud Monitor, we can ensure that external bad actors are not compromising our staff and students’ accounts. And we have a clear and easy way to quarantine threats,” Craig explains. “The suspicious login activity report provides an excellent glimpse into accounts that could be compromised, and is now part of our daily checks.”

Now, there is a full team looking into data security and student safety alerts at Moline-Coal Valley School District. Student safety alerts are routed to the appropriate principals, counselors, and support staff responsible for the school building it originated from. Meanwhile, Craig’s team can focus on addressing suspicious logins and other data security risks. 

“Cloud Monitor is a great solution that quickly alerts us to issues that are going on in our Google Workspace domain and allows us to easily drill into investigating an incident and take action,” Craig shares. “It’s a powerful asset that is easy to use, which saves us time and keeps our students safe.”

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 Moline-Coal Valley School District Shifts from Reactive to Proactive Student Safety & Google Security 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-moline-coal-valley-school-district-il/