K–12 Cloud Innovators Look Back While Moving Forward

A bit over a decade ago, some forward-thinking school districts began to transition their on-premises email to the cloud. Around the same time, Chromebooks popped up, and as more schools invested in one-to-one device initiatives, more students connected to Google’s suite of cloud applications. 

Then came cloud-hosted student information systems, learning management systems and countless learning apps that allow students to do everything from study their math facts to virtually dissect frogs.

At this point, the cloud is so ubiquitous that nearly all districts have found themselves adopting a multicloud approach that relies on resources from more than one public cloud vendor, says Amy McLaughlin, project director for CoSN’s Cybersecurity and Network and Systems Design initiatives. McLaughlin is also the executive director of technical and solutions architecture at Oregon State University. “It’s not even a question of whether you should consider cloud or not,” she says. “Really, the question is, what is your strategy?”

During its transition from novelty to near-default, the cloud has revolutionized not only IT infrastructure but also teaching and learning in K–12. Three technology leaders look back on their own districts’ cloud journeys, share the lessons they have learned and offer a glimpse into how the cloud is likely to shape the future of education.

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How Cloud Allows Gig Harbor Schools to Achieve the Impossible

When EdTech last checked in with Peninsula School District in Gig Harbor, Wash., in 2021, its cloud journey was already well underway, with tools like Amazon Web Services’ virtual desktop service AppStream helping students access software such as Adobe Creative Cloud on Chromebooks. But just a few years later, the district’s cloud environment has both grown and changed dramatically, says CIO Kris Hagel.

“In 2021, around 60% to 75% of our resources were in the public cloud,” Hagel says. “Today, we’re in the 90% range. I can foresee a day where we have no real infrastructure on-premises, other than what’s needed to keep the network running.”

PSD has moved its entire telephony system to the cloud through Zoom and is in the process of migrating its security camera system to the cloud — a move that Hagel says became practical only with technology improvements over the past several years.

While most of the district’s cloud resources are housed with AWS, PSD recently began working in Microsoft Azure to support a generative artificial intelligence project that it is working on in partnership with Vanderbilt University. It’s using Azure resources to build its own AI that draws on district data (such as teacher contracts and evaluations) to inform HR policies and training programs, among other things.

LOOK BACK: Local school districts learn to successfully shift to the cloud.

Occasionally, the district has had to pull back resources from the public cloud. For instance, it brought its student information system back on-premises after regular data transfers to and from the cloud resulted in unexpectedly large bills. Security concerns have also grown, Hagel says, causing the district to invest in a network access control tool from SentinelOne.

Still, Hagel says, the cloud has helped the district achieve what once seemed impossible. "With our deep dive into the benefits of what generative AI can do for us and how we can build tools that help our staff be more efficient and improve our students’ education, none of that would be possible without the cloud,” he says.

“The computing power necessary for some of these AI applications are not something that a midsized school district like us will ever be able to afford and we look to our cloud partners to assist us with that."

Cloud Applications Help San Diego USD Students Learn and Share

In 2017, when EdTech spoke to leaders at San Diego Unified School District, there was already a robust Chromebook deployment in place. But the number and variety of cloud apps that students can access with those devices has since exploded, says Toren Allen, executive director of integrated technology.

“With the cloud, application usage tends to go up tremendously for students, just because it’s more accessible,” Allen says. “It’s a lot easier for schools to get access and get it turned on and start using it right away.”

The district now has about 100 cloud applications that, in many cases, school administrators purchase for their individual school needs, Allen says. That’s up nearly twofold from just a couple of years ago. Driving this growth: Google Workspace for Education and other digital education platforms that integrate more seamlessly with third-party apps to securely share district data. Cloud use also minimizes the setup and maintenance required by school staff.

RELATED: K–12 schools can save money on their cloud infrastructure via three key ways.

The ease of data sharing, Allen notes, requires schools to be mindful about which applications they’re using and how. “Vendors will give you a free demo for three months, but if you don’t have a data sharing agreement with a vendor, you don’t have a way to hold them accountable if they experience a data breach, for example,” he says.

Although the district maintains an on-premises environment for most of its business applications, Allen says, student learning applications are now nearly 100% in the cloud — an outcome that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. “At the time, there was no other choice,” he says. “Now that we’re here, anytime there’s something new, folks are more open to embracing the cloud because they’ve seen what it can do.”

Shifting to the Cloud Frees Up Garden City Public Schools Staff

A decade ago, when Garden City Public Schools IT staff told EdTech that the Kansas district had put its email in the public cloud, the tech products they mentioned (such as Microsoft OneDrive) were largely new and unfamiliar.

Today, these tools are known to virtually everyone in the K–12 world, and the district has gone from essentially no cloud footprint to hosting about 60% of its IT environment in the public cloud.

REVIEW: Districts share how to best compute in the cloud with the right hardware.

“One of the biggest benefits is that we’re not maintaining those resources onsite,” says Casey Wise, who has been with the district for 26 years and became technology director in fall 2024. “The cloud frees up our technicians to focus on technology projects themselves, without having to worry so much about the supporting hardware that’s sitting in a closet.”

Today, Garden City Public Schools relies on Microsoft 365 for most business operations, while students and teachers largely use Google Workspace for Education in the classroom. Currently, the district is moving its telephony system to the cloud via Cisco’s Webex Calling.

Looking ahead, Wise expects the district to consider cloud options every time an existing on-premises system needs to be upgraded. “When we started with these tools, they didn’t have a cloud version, and now they do,” he says. “A lot of times, vendors move their whole product lines to the cloud. So, the question is whether to move to their cloud version or do something different. I think we’re always evaluating those things in K–12, especially as more and more vendors move that direction.”