Nash County Public Schools Transforms IT Support with BeyondTrust Remote Support

Tremain McQueen, CTO, and James Williams, Sr Network Engineer, at Nash County Public Schools

Nash County Public Schools in North Carolina serves just under 14,000 students and roughly 1,700 –1,800 staff across 24 schools and 27 sites. The district’s IT team oversees a one-to-one Chromebook program for students, a diverse mix of staff devices, and many campuses spread across the county. Yet the district’s 15-person technology team needed a better way to keep learning running without spending their days driving from school to school.

The chance for transformation came when the district moved to a new, state-provided endpoint security tool and lost the bundled remote access solution they had formerly relied on. Rather than treat that as a setback, Nash County turned the cost savings into an opportunity to modernize remote support and resolve existing operational issues.

The team sought a modern remote support solution that would let technicians quickly help teachers and students anywhere in the district, reduce classroom downtime, and strengthen security and oversight for Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA) sensitive data. BeyondTrust Remote Support offered Nash County a single, secure way to support every device and every user, from anywhere, all while improving ticket handling efficiency and avoiding unnecessary downtime spent traveling to school sites to provide in-person support.

After a careful evaluation, the district selected BeyondTrust Remote Support, and quickly found that it not only replaced what they had lost, but “changed their lives” in how they support classrooms, staff, and students.

A Growing District with Rising Support Demands

Technicians are assigned across elementary, middle, and high schools, and were often on the road resolving issues in person. Simple problems—like printer issues or misconfigured devices—could easily consume hours once travel time was included. Troubleshooting could also disrupt classroom instruction, often inconveniencing and frustrating all parties involved.

When the district adopted a new endpoint security platform made available by the state, they saved more than $30,000 annually—but the remote access tool that was bundled with the old endpoint security platform went away with it. They now had a gap to fill, and a clear budget opportunity to do it right.

Nash County’s technology team didn’t make the decision in isolation. They strategically consulted K-12 peer communities and regional director groups to benchmark options. They then formed an internal evaluation team representing different IT roles and, together, built a feature checklist and compared multiple remote support tools.

Several products covered parts of their list, but with trade-offs—strong remote access but weak reporting, or reasonable features at an unsustainable price.

When they saw a demo of BeyondTrust Remote Support, they realized they could get everything they needed—and more—within their budget. Features that had been scattered across different tools were consolidated into a single platform.

The combination of capabilities, price, and public-sector-ready security made the decision, in their words, a “no-brainer.”

BeyondTrust’s onboarding team then worked side-by-side with Nash County’s implementation group to stand the solution up quickly and tailor it to their environment. The experience left a strong impression and set the foundation for an ongoing partnership.

With BeyondTrust Remote Support in place, Nash County now has a single, secure platform to support staff and students anywhere in the district—and beyond.

Key capabilities include:

• Unattended access: Technicians can securely connect to devices even when no one is physically present or logged in, which is crucial for early-morning maintenance or resolving issues outside of class time.

• Cross-platform support: The team can support Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, iOS, and Android from one tool, keeping staff laptops, lab machines, and student Chromebooks all within reach.

• Flexible ways to connect: End users can be helped through pre-installed clients, browser-based sessions, or by simply visiting a portal and entering a numeric code—ideal for staff working from home or traveling.

• Powerful device search: Technicians can quickly locate a device using whatever information they have—username, device name, serial number, or MAC address—and jump straight into a session.

• Fast file transfers: Large files, including installers and patches, can be moved between devices in minutes, dramatically speeding up common maintenance tasks.

• Collaborative sessions: Multiple technicians can join the same remote session to cooperatively troubleshoot complex issues, instead of handing tickets off or duplicating work.

• SSO and granular permissions: SAML integration provides single sign-on for technicians, while pre-defined groups with specific permissions let the district safely extend limited access to non-IT staff who support specialized systems.

• Ticketing integration: Through API integrations, technicians can launch remote sessions directly from tickets in their ITSM solution of choice (such as ServiceNow or Jira Service Management), and key session details can be associated with the record for better tracking.

• Audit trails and session recording: Every session is logged, and optional recordings are used both for accountability and as a powerful training library for new technicians
  

The district also set clear policies around where remote access is allowed. For example, technicians are not permitted to remote into personal home computers, helping maintain a strong privacy posture.

Since deploying BeyondTrust Remote Support, Nash County Public Schools teachers and staff have noticed the difference: problems get solved faster, interruptions to instruction are shorter, and they no longer feel like they have to wait for someone to drive across the county to help them. They experience meaningful benefits, such as:

• Time and cost-savings: With far fewer “truck rolls,” technicians spend more time fixing issues and less time driving between sites—translating into real cost savings and higher productivity.

• Higher ticket throughput: A high school technician can now handle 10–15 tickets per day remotely, with many resolved in a single session.

• Improved user experience: Staff and administrators get faster, more reliable support, wherever they are. The process is straightforward: get a session key, start a session, get real-time help.

• Stronger security and oversight: Comprehensive logging and optional recordings give the district clear visibility into what actions were taken on which devices, supporting both troubleshooting and compliance needs.

• Built-in training library: Session recordings serve as a real-world knowledge base for new technicians, who can watch how common issues were resolved and learn best practices directly from real sessions.