Arizona district gains real-time threat visibility and protects student data while within budget by partnering with ManagedMethods
Claire Sexton, Cybersecurity Administrator for Kingman Unified School District located in Kingman, Arizona, describes her role as the district’s “digital bodyguard.” With a small IT team supporting roughly 7,000 students and 850 staff members, her mission is clear: protect the district’s people and data in an increasingly complex cyber landscape.
The rural district relies heavily on Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals, Google’s free license tier, which lacks advanced security features.
“I originally went in looking for a way to manage phishing emails. But Cloud Monitor goes far beyond just email security. We can see when kids are trying to upload things to their Google Drive that they shouldn’t be, or when someone is sending IEP information externally. Cloud Monitor goes far beyond email security—it’s an essential Google Workspace tool.”
— Claire Sexton, Cybersecurity Administrator, Kingman Unified School District
When Claire learned about ManagedMethods’ Cloud Monitor platform, she saw an opportunity to gain enterprise-grade security capabilities at a cost that would actually work with her budget. “You can’t protect what you can’t see,” she explains. “Cloud Monitor gives us that visibility.”
Challenges
Before implementing Cloud Monitor, Kingman USD faced serious blind spots in its Google environment. The district struggled to detect and respond quickly to threats such as phishing emails, suspicious logins, and compromised accounts.
“We didn’t have an easy way to pull malicious emails, block them, or see when an account was logging in from somewhere it shouldn’t,” Claire recalls. Investigating threats in Google’s native admin tools was slow and cumbersome, often requiring her to sift through thousands of emails just to find a single threat.
The district’s security process relied heavily on staff reporting issues. This reactive approach left them vulnerable, especially after experiencing 15 compromised accounts in one year, including six incidents in just two weeks.
“When our finance director got a suspicious email from a trusted local business, I was able to use Cloud Monitor to confirm that their account had been compromised and was sending phishing emails. Using Cloud Monitor, we quickly scrubbed every email from our district before anyone interacted with it. It was gone before it could do damage.”
— Claire Sexton, Cybersecurity Administrator, Kingman Unified School District
“We had to wait until accounts got compromised to even know something was wrong,” she says. Other security solutions they evaluated required costly Google license upgrades and would have forced a choice between protecting staff or students. “That wasn’t acceptable. We needed a solution that covered everyone without breaking our budget.”
Results
Since deploying Cloud Monitor, Kingman USD has gained the visibility and control they were missing—at a price they can afford.
Claire and her team can now detect suspicious activity in real time, investigate phishing emails without risky interaction, and take swift action to contain threats.
“Cloud Monitor gives us the enterprise-level security we were missing without the enterprise price tag. It fits our K-12 budget, delivers near real-time visibility and control, and the ManagedMethods support team is always quick to jump in when we need help.”
— Claire Sexton, Cybersecurity Administrator, Kingman Unified School District
In a recent incident, the finance director received a suspicious email from a trusted local business. Without the director clicking or forwarding anything, Claire used Cloud Monitor to confirm the sender’s account had been compromised just hours earlier. She was able to quickly scrub all emails from that source district-wide, plus notify the business they had been compromised. “No one interacted with it. It was gone before it could do damage,” she says.
Claire says Cloud Monitor has more than lived up to her expectations, helping her protect the district’s sensitive data and monitor inappropriate use of Google apps.
“I originally went in looking for a way to manage phishing emails,” she explains. “But it goes far beyond just email security. We can see when kids are trying to upload things to their Google Drive that they shouldn’t be, or when someone is sending IEP information externally. All around, it’s a really good Google Workspace tool.”
“Cloud Monitor opened my eyes to just how much sensitive information was being sent out unnecessarily. Now I can spot when staff are sharing IEPs inappropriately or when students are trying to upload inappropriate content to their Google Drive. That kind of real-time insight is invaluable for both cybersecurity and student safety.”
— Claire Sexton, Cybersecurity Administrator, Kingman Unified School District
Claire also values the responsiveness of ManagedMethods’ support team, recalling how they investigated a complex question about Google Doc comments. “Knowing that ManagedMethods has your back is really, really nice,” she says.
Her advice to other IT teams? “Fight for what you need and don’t settle for limited visibility. Cloud Monitor meets you where you are, at a price that makes sense for K-12.”
Want to learn more about how Cloud Monitor and Content Filter can improve your school’s cybersecurity and safety? Claim your free Google Workspace and/or Microsoft 365 security and safety audit today.
