Case Study: Grand Island Public Schools achieves a secure, scalable, CIPA‑compliant network with Fortinet Security Fabric

Securing the Technology That Shapes Young Minds at Grand Island Public Schools

Grand Island Public Schools, serving over 10,000 students in Nebraska, relied heavily on classroom technology—providing Chromebooks to grades 2–12—but its legacy firewall and disparate point solutions couldn’t keep up with rising bandwidth, visibility, and compliance demands. The district faced maintenance renewals, limited network insight, CIPA requirements, and the operational risk of costly downtime.

The district implemented the Fortinet Security Fabric—FortiGate 3100D HA pair, FortiAnalyzer, FortiClient EMS and Chromebook clients, FortiAPs, and smaller FortiGates for branch sites—enabling SSL inspection, web filtering, DLP, centralized endpoint management, and off‑campus protection. The result was unified visibility and CIPA compliance, streamlined audits, data-driven application decisions, minimized downtime, and reduced operational overhead for a modest IT team.

Grand Island Public Schools

Cory Gearhart

Executive Director of IT