NAFCCSD Customer Success Story

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newalbanyfloyd

New Albany Floyd County Consolidated School District rolls out NAC in record time with Portnox

At-a-Glance

Industry: K-12 Education

Headquarters: New Albany, Indiana

Employees: over 700 employees plus 12,500 students

Locations: 16 schools + 4 support buildings (20 total)

Devices: ~15,000 (including 12,500 Chromebooks)

Network: Aruba switches, Ruckus Wi-Fi, FortiGate firewalls

Environment: Google Workspace (large Chromebook footprint)

Services Implemented: Portnox Cloud NAC + RADIUS

Deployment Model: AgentP for managed endpoints, MAB for unmanaged/IoT

Driver: Cybersecurity reviews, need for full NAC, visibility, and simplicity

Company Background

New Albany Floyd County Consolidated School Corporation (NAFCS), located in southern Indiana, serves more than 12,500 students across 16 schools and multiple administrative and support buildings. With a growing reliance on Chromebooks, IP-based systems, and diverse connected devices, the district’s IT team manages approximately 15,000 endpoints.

The district’s small IT staff is tasked with not only supporting learning technologies but also advancing its cybersecurity maturity. Recent cybersecurity assessments highlighted the lack of a true Network Access Control (NAC) solution as a gap to address.

The Challenge

When IT Manager Christopher Bowers joined the district in 2019, NAFCS was using Cisco ISE, but the platform’s complexity and cost quickly led to the realization that they weren’t ever going to be able to get full functionality from it. For years, the district relied on Microsoft Network Policy Server (NPS) to handle wireless onboarding. While functional, NPS lacked scalability, visibility, and logging capabilities—making troubleshooting painful and leaving wired devices unmanaged.

As cybersecurity reviews flagged NAC as a top priority, NAFCS defined “four pillars” for improving security posture—with NAC at the top of the list. The district needed a simple, scalable solution that could secure both wired and wireless environments, support its large Chromebook footprint, and avoid costly new hardware.

Why Portnox

After evaluating multiple vendors—including Aruba ClearPass and FortiNAC—NAFCS selected Portnox Cloud NAC.

In just a few days, we implemented all of the necessary policies for our network.

Christopher Bowers, IT Manager

What sealed the deal

  • Simplicity: Deployment completed primarily by two people in just a couple of days.
  • Fast Deployment: From pilot to district-wide rollout in weeks.
  • Cloud-native: No new hardware or unsupported hypervisors required.
  • Scalable: Seamlessly went from protecting a handful of devices to more than 10,000 starting first day of school.
  • Support Partnership: Portnox provided rapid solutions to Google integration challenges specific to NAFCS, with a roadmap aligned to customer needs.

Portnox was not just another module in a vendor’s stack but a dedicated NAC
solution designed to be intuitive, lightweight, and fast to deploy.

Key Concerns:

  • Meeting cybersecurity review requirements for NAC.
  • Managing 12,500+ Chromebooks at scale.
  • Ensuring visibility into all devices connecting across 20 buildings.
  • Avoiding the complexity and cost of hardware-heavy NAC solutions.
  • Deploying quickly over summer break with a lean IT team.

Portnox's ability to scale has been very impressive. With the recent start of the new school year, we expanded from just a few hundred registered devices to well over 10,000 in a matter of days.

Christopher Bowers, IT Manager

Implementation

Deployment began with two pilot elementary schools in May 2025 to validate performance before summer break. By the next month, Portnox was rolled out across all schools, with remaining support buildings scheduled after upcoming switch upgrades.

What the rollout included:

  • AgentP installed on managed endpoints.
  • MAC Authentication Bypass (MAB) for printers, cameras, PA systems, and other IoT devices.
  • Google Workspace integration for Chromebook authentication.
  • Streamlined cross-department collaboration: Facilities teams can now install IP-based systems, such as cameras and PA speakers, without coordinating switch configurations.

Even niche environments—like the world’s oldest student-operated radio station (WNAS, broadcasting since 1949)—
were seamlessly onboarded with Portnox.

Onboarding devices to the network is really one of the least of our concerns at this point.

Christopher Bowers, IT Manager

The Results

  • Full NAC achieved: Met cybersecurity review requirements.
  • Simplicity at scale: Deployed NAC district-wide in weeks, managed by a 2-person network team.
  • Chromebook-ready: Seamlessly scaled to 12,500+ devices on the first day of school.
  • Better visibility: Real-time insight into all devices across 20 buildings.
    Operational efficiency: No more static switch port assignments—plug in a device, and Portnox does the rest.
  • Cross-Team collaboration: Non-IT departments (like Facilities) can deploy IP systems without creating IT bottlenecks.

Unexpected Wins

  • Rapid issue resolution: Google Workspace sync challenge resolved in under three weeks by Portnox support.
  • Support partnership: Portnox support’s commitment to addressing NAFCS integration needs went beyond expectations.
  • Deployment speed: Entire district-wide rollout done in under a month.

It was like magic—it just worked.

Christopher Bowers, IT Manager

By deploying Portnox Cloud NAC, NAFCS not only closed a critical cybersecurity gap flagged in audits, but also delivered district-wide visibility, secured 15,000 devices across 20 campuses, and simplified onboarding for both Chromebooks and IoT systems. With cloud-native policy enforcement, seamless Google Workspace integration, and effortless scalability, its
two-person network team can now provide stronger security and smoother access for students, staff, and even non-IT departments — all without costly hardware or added complexity.

Key Takeaways:

  • Simplicity matters: NAC doesn’t need to be complex or hardware-heavy.
  • Small teams can scale big: Two admins deployed Portnox NAC across 20 buildings in under a month.
  • Chromebook-ready: Portnox is proven at scale in one of the largest Google Workspace K–12 environments.
  • Partnership counts: Responsive support and roadmap alignment accelerate customer success.