Case Study: The Hillside School

The Hillside School is a private school in Macungie, PA for elementary aged children with learning disabilities. The school’s rich heritage in educational excellence constantly renews their mission to maximize the potential of a child with learning disabilities. The outstanding faculty and progressive ideas are what keep The Hillside school on the cutting edge. Students and parents agree that Hillside is, “a special place,” and we agree.

In 2011, Hillside reached out to The Kyle David Group to help develop a technology plan that would efficiently manage the school’s 300+ devices and ensure that they were consistently staying on top of the latest offerings in assistive technology. Managing this many devices in an organization that demands constant and consistent access is a challenge in any environment, but within Hillside it presented an even bigger challenge: elementary aged users.

The Kyle David Group in collaboration with Hillside Staff and Faculty developed and implemented a technology plan that:

Consolidated the number of servers to be managed and developed a two year plan to consolidate further to a single server for the entire facility.
Created a comprehensive hardware inventory so that Hillside always has an accurate picture of the technology available as well as a refresh calendar.
Developed and deployed a mobile strategy within the building that encompasses student laptops, iPads, and iPod Touch devices.
Allows all Staff and Faculty the portability to work with school computers from their homes through a cloud integration.
Provides a combination of help desk support off site, remote maintenance and management, and on-site support that ensures that all of the technology investments are working properly.

As with any technology rollout that is new to an organization, there were plenty of times where things didn’t go as planned.

“We were extremely pleased with the responsiveness, thoroughness, and expertise that the Kyle David Group brought to the school. We know that technology changes constantly, so there will continue to be bumps along the way. With support from the Kyle David Group individualization through technology at The Hillside School is an achieveable challenge.”

As a result of the implementation of the technology plan, Hillside is on track to reduce their IT spending significantly, while maintaining their leadership in technological enhancements in the classroom.

“Our faculty are outstanding! They are the reason that this place thrives, and as a result our children thrive. The Kyle David Group has played a vital role in ensuring that our Faculty, Staff, and Students have all of the technology they need at their fingertips.”