Chicago Public Schools Systemwide IT Innovations

Comprehensive IT Improvements for the 2nd Largest School System in the U.S.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the second-largest school district in the United States, serving 361,000 children, and the second-largest employer in Illinois with more than 45,000 employees. The CPS system operates more than 600 locations, including 500 pre-K–12 schools and alternative learning centers along with other support centers and administrative offices. With 75 percent of the student body coming from an economically disadvantaged background, CPS’ vision is that every student in every neighborhood will be engaged in a rigorous, well-rounded instructional program and graduate prepared for success in college, career, and life.

CPS’ Board of Education trusted Sentinel Technologies and Level-1 Global Solutions with system-wide technology and network security upgrades to help enhance their digital learning capabilities and communications and keep Chicago’s students safe. CPS also required a major network infrastructure overhaul to keep pace with rapid changes in technology and improve the security, reliability, and performance of its critical infrastructure and assets. The outdated network equipment at the schools needed upgrading to current Board of Education standards to ensure greater network stability, additional bandwidth, remote management capabilities, and increased WAN/LAN security and network performance.

Level-1 delivered comprehensive IT technology professional services that included: professional IT support; the design, engineering, and installation of new physical and enhanced cyber security systems and an integrated A/V system; improvements to WAN/LAN networks; web filtering; data center relocation; and other advisory services such as enterprise systems management, network infrastructure, data storage, and access models, application management, information security, mobile device management, and disaster recovery/business continuity planning.

Level-1 worked with CPS to assess the current state of its IT enterprise and gave strategic advice on how to design, implement and manage the improvement process. Level-1’s experienced desktop and network management teams then helped implement a system for CPS to efficiently manage its networked IT environment to accommodate a growing number of users. Level-1 provided CPS with a turnkey set of IT service management practices, including advanced monitoring, remote management, and automated support for a range of enterprise systems (i.e. applications, data centers, cloud, laptops, printers, workstations, network devices, servers, storage devices, and mainframes).

 

Location

Chicago

Markets

Education
Government

Services

Technical Services
Engineering (Design)