Fife School Districts Use Amazon AppStream 2.0 to Provide Equitable Access

Fife Public Schools provides a device for every kid in the district. But like many schools with 1:1 programs, they ran into challenges when trying to provide specialty software programs to students. CTE (Careers and Technical Education) classes were using specialized applications like CAD, Project Lead the Way, and Photoshop – all programs that were only accessible via computer labs during school hours.  Fife began exploring how they could offer students access to these programs at any time on their 1:1 devices.

“To provide a truly equitable learning experience using technology, Fife School District needed to look beyond just providing a device. We needed a device-agnostic solution for all applications to allow our staff and students to be innovative anywhere, anytime,” said Keith Stevens, Manager of Infrastructure Technology & Support Staff.

To fill the void, Fife School District implemented Amazon AppStream 2.0. With students able to access specialty software via a browser, Fife was able to turn the computer labs into much-needed classroom space and save nearly $10,944 in lab costs per year.

With Amazon AppStream 2.0, Fife now experiences:

• Accessibility – Students are now able to access these specialized applications anywhere on any device.
• Agility – With a small team, Keith can quickly handle one-off requests to deploy new software on demand.
• Availability – “Many Amazon services offer 9 nines of availability. We can’t maintain that kind of availability with our team. We want to make these Apps available at home at any time of day or night,” said Keith.
• Scalability – Deploying software to the lab was difficult to scale and maintain. Teachers would request that software be installed, which was time-consuming. It was hard to maintain the physical hardware. Now, Fife can scale up or down depending on need. In the summer, they can scale down and they can quickly deploy new applications. Keith said that now, within 30 minutes, they can have an entire lab up and running.
• Lower costs – It costs Fife School district $17,280 a year to run a single computer lab. By adopting AppStream2.0, they were able to save $10,944 per lab per year.

Learn more about Amazon AppStream 2.0.