Updated on 11/30/2020: We are pleased to report that 16 additional Districts are using Cameyo, bringing the total to 50 Districts since August.
Hands down the most rewarding part of this job is being able to help organizations overcome seemingly insurmountable issues so that they can continue to serve their customers/constituents. And while we’ve seen this type of situation across many industries – from financial services to the energy sector and everything in between – perhaps the greatest sense of urgency we’ve seen has come from education institutions, where schools and districts have had to rapidly shift their focus from having students in class to enabling widespread distance learning. 
For many school districts, the initial plan was to start the new school year with students in the classroom. But when COVID-19 cases began to spike again, most needed to shift gears quickly, leaving them in a very difficult position when it comes to ensuring that all of their students have access to all of the educational applications they need to continue learning from home.
To illustrate this need – in just the last 30 days, 34 school districts (serving hundreds of thousands of students) have deployed Cameyo to help enable their distance learning programs.
The problem these school districts all face is that their students still need access to critical Windows applications – everything from AutoCAD to Adobe Creative Suite to Microsoft Office – even when they’re distance learning. But many students don’t have a Windows PC at home.
Cameyo enables these school districts to give all of their students simple & secure access to all of the software they need to learn, no matter what device they’re using. And Cameyo’s digital workspace platform can be deployed in hours instead of weeks, all while dramatically reducing cost and complexity compared to virtual desktops.
We asked a few of these new districts to share why they selected Cameyo and how this has helped them deliver a better remote education experience for their students, and here’s what they shared:
Providing a Cost-Effective Alternative to DaaS
“We had been using VMware, but the cost was prohibitive, especially for widespread remote learning. We needed a cost-effective alternative that would enable us to provide all of our students with access to all of the apps they need – including legacy Windows apps – from their Chromebooks. Cameyo not only saved us a ton of money compared to VMware, but it is incredibly easy to manage, and is more secure. This works better than anything we’ve ever had, and Cameyo is now going to play a key role in our long-term plans for moving everything to the cloud,” said John Cerio, Network Administrator at Baldwinsville Central School District.
Eliminating the Learning Curve for Distance Learning
“COVID-19 has forced school districts to deliver instruction differently. For Staunton City Schools, this meant we needed a realistic plan to deliver Windows applications to students using Chromebooks at home. Cameyo has delivered every step of the way, and our students are now successfully accessing all of their applications from home – simply and securely – with Cameyo! The setup and deployment of Cameyo was quick, and the user experience for students is excellent. Students still get access to the full desktop version of the software they’re used to, just running in a browser, so there’s no learning curve. Also, Cameyo’s support team was great throughout the process – they have continued to follow through for us and didn’t abandon us after the deployment went live,” said Tom Lundquist, Director of Technology at Staunton City Schools.
Extending the Value of 1:1 Programs with Access to All Apps
“As the San Diego Unified School District entered into plans for online learning to begin the 2020-2021 school year, the College, Career and Technical Education department was committed to finding a solution to continue to provide students with access to the industry-standard software they need for their courses. The district moved to a 1:1 device strategy to provide all students with a device for online learning, which included Chromebooks. Cameyo provided the solution we needed to make the critical software available to students on any device through the browser, and Cameyo’s ease of use and cost-effectiveness have been critical to our ability to enable these distance-learning efforts,” said Sarah Vielma, Director of College, Career, and Technical Education at San Diego Unified School District.
Does Your District Need Help?
If you find yourself in a similar situation and your school and/or district is working to provide simple, secure, and cost-effective access to critical applications on any device to enable remote learning, we’re here to help! You can get started in minutes with your free trial here, and our Cameyo for Education team will be in touch quickly to help get you up and running. And as Tom from Staunton mentioned above – our support team is in it with you for the long haul (and beyond), so we’ll have your back every step of the way.