Case Study: Aspire Public Schools achieves secure, uninterrupted access to digital learning tools with Palo Alto Networks

Innovative Charter School Management Organization Gets High Marks in Securing the Digital Education Environment

Aspire Public Schools is a charter management organization operating 40 schools in California and Tennessee and serving more than 16,600 students. With classrooms reliant on Chromebooks and a growing set of online learning tools, Aspire needed to ensure uninterrupted access to digital education while protecting students, staff and networks from increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats.

Aspire replaced legacy firewalls with the Palo Alto Networks Security Operating Platform (PA‑5050/PA‑3060) using Threat Prevention, URL Filtering and App‑ID to deliver application‑level control, geoblocking, centralized policy and local monitoring. The deployment protected educational traffic without impeding access, dramatically sped threat detection (from days of reactive work to around an hour), reduced remediation effort, and gave regional admins visibility while keeping central control to stay ahead of evolving threats.

Aspire Public Schools

Brian Sullivan

Systems and Network Manager