AMI’s Mobility Management Solution Enabled a California Charter School to Deploy 25,000 Devices, Advancing Digital Equity for Students
A California charter school partnered with AMI Strategies and T-Mobile for Business to tackle educational inequality by providing managed smartphones to students. Offering free high school diplomas and career education to adults over 22, the school needed to ensure equal access to technology but lacked the internal resources to manage a large number of devices.
A Comprehensive Mobility Program
T-Mobile for Business provided the 5G connectivity, while AMI Strategies developed a full mobility program. This included mobile device management (MDM) and unified endpoint management (UEM) solutions, along with custom applications for digital attendance tracking and homework submission. AMI also managed the configuration and deployment of devices, easing the burden on the school’s IT staff.
Rapid Growth and Success
The program quickly scaled from 500 to 25,000 student devices in three years, allowing the school to focus on its mission while AMI and T-Mobile handled the mobile infrastructure. This partnership exemplifies how technology can empower schools to create better learning environments without overwhelming internal resources.
THE CHALLENGE
One California charter school has an admirable mission: to eradicate educational inequality in their city. As a crucial part of this, they needed to ensure students had equal access to the resources and technology to be self-sufficient learners.
The charter school offers a high school diploma program, English language classes, and career technical education to people over 22 years old at no cost. To support this initiative, they sought to provide a free managed smartphone to every student to ensure equitable internet access and a level playing field for learning.
However, with a very small onsite IT staff, the school didn’t have the bandwidth or visibility to identify the best solution, let alone manage the growing number of new devices. So, beyond simply purchasing the devices and connectivity, they needed a strategic partner to develop a full mobility program which would allow them to meet students’ needs without stretching the resources within their own team.
With the largest and fastest 5G network, T-Mobile for Business was able to provide the connectivity to support the school’s ambitious undertaking. But connectivity was just one piece of the ultimate solution. So, T-Mobile enlisted their trusted partner, AMI Strategies—a full-service mobile device and invoice lifecycle management provider—to implement these devices.
“The education of the future needs to be accessible. Traditional classrooms want to put the phone away. This school embraces it as a resource. We needed a partner to help us realize our vision.”
– Director of IT, Charter School
THE SOLUTION
T-Mobile was confident that AMI Strategies could offer the Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) that the school needed to move forward with this program. Sure enough, they quickly identified an appropriate MDM Software Solution based on three critical requirements: the ability to track, built-in security, and simplified management.
With T-Mobile’s support in getting the devices connected, AMI then handled the configuration of the MDM Portal, device settings, and deployment processes to ensure that the applications and settings for each phone were set up properly. This partnership allowed the school to leverage AMI Strategies’ MDM engineers, and post-sale help desk support instead of shouldering the heavy burden in-house and having to hire additional full time head count within their IT department.
As a part of the MDM/UEM Services, AMI Strategies worked closely with the school on the configuration of their two custom applications with the MDM software—to maximize the student smartphones’ effectiveness with features like digital attendance-tracking, class schedules, homework submission, and chat functionality. These apps supported students in boosting skills, learning English, and ultimately earning their diplomas while helping the school avoid incurring unnecessary costs from the smartphones.
From the start, there was a strong sense of collaboration between T-Mobile for Business and AMI Strategies. Although this was a T-Mobile-led engagement, AMI was chosen as the management consultant and trusted to take the lead. With the reliable foundation of T-Mobile’s leading 5G network, AMI was able to turn the charter school’s vision of equitable digital literacy into a secure, well-managed reality.
“Together with the T-Mobile for Business partner team, we were able to determine the customer’s specific needs and find a solution to help them achieve their goals.”
– Stephen Collins, Director of Partner Channels & Alliances, AMI Strategies
THE RESULTS
Following implementation, the school experienced rapid growth in student enrollment and supported campuses, from 500 to 6,000 deployed devices in the first year alone. Within the first three years, the program grew to support more than 25,000 student smartphones, rivaling any large company’s mobility deployment.
AMI Strategies has expanded their professional services offering, and as of April of 2023, they now support the entire mobile device lifecycle including procurement, fulfillment, MDM/UEM Services, Help Desk, Invoice Management, and End of life services. This has helped ensure that the school can grow without taking on the corporate IT overhead. AMI Strategies continues to work with the school to improve the program through device testing, profile modifications, policy assistance, bug mitigation, and more. They were instrumental in supporting a 17,000-device migration from one mobile device manager to another as the organization’s needs changed. Their comprehensive support and service delivery ensure full lifecycle mobility and invoice management from deployment to end-of-life of student smartphones—all connected by the T-Mobile for Business 5G network.
From identifying the right solution to streamlining every stage of the mobile device lifecycle, AMI Strategies and T-Mobile for Business have helped develop an entire mobility program to help the charter school provide a connection, achieve instructional objectives, and focus on creating a better future for every student.
