About
Adams 12 Five Star Schools is a public school district in Colorado serving more than 36,000 students and employing 4,400 staff across 52 sites, including elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as district facilities. The district supports a wide range of educational and operational services, from classroom technology and student devices to facilities, safety, and central administration.
The Challenge
For years, the IT team at Adams 12 had been pushing to replace Ivanti HEAT, a ticketing system that had been in place for more than two decades and was approaching end-of-life. The tool relied on a single generic submission form, offered limited reporting, and gave staff no way to view or track their own requests. Managing work across multiple IT teams was difficult, creating delays in an environment where schools depend on timely technical support.
Alongside HEAT, many IT processes were handled through Google Forms, Sheets, and Docs, with approval workflows, documentation, and status information spread across disconnected tools. This made it hard to manage requests consistently or understand how long key processes were taking.
Similar challenges existed beyond IT. Other departments across the district relied on their own forms, spreadsheets, or long-standing databases, leaving staff to search for the right place to submit requests and giving leadership little visibility into how work was being handled across dozens of schools.
Without a central system, quoting became another issue. Staff often had to delay quotes until information could be retrieved or verified, risking lost opportunities in a time-sensitive environment. Adams 12 needed a modern platform that could replace its legacy systems, centralise IT processes, and provide a foundation other teams could adopt over time.
The Solution
Adams 12 replaced Ivanti HEAT with Halo and rebuilt how IT work was submitted, routed, and tracked across the district. Instead of relying on a single generic form, the IT team introduced structured request types that captured the right information upfront and routed work directly to the appropriate teams. Staff gained a central portal where they could submit and track requests, while all email communication was automatically recorded within tickets, eliminating the inbox-based follow-ups that previously slowed resolution during the school day.
To address long-standing visibility issues, Adams 12 standardised the use of child tickets for work involving multiple teams. Requests that previously relied on informal hand-offs were broken into clear, team-owned pieces of work. This gave IT a reliable way to understand cross-team dependencies and manage shared responsibility more effectively.
One of the most impactful changes was the restructuring of the Verification of Enterprise Technology process used by teachers to request new applications or websites. Previously handled through a Google Form and spreadsheet, the process was rebuilt in Halo to include defined review steps across Information Security, Learning Services, and Purchasing. Requests are now reviewed consistently, decisions are documented in full, and approved tools are captured in a growing application catalogue, reducing repeat requests and giving staff clarity on what is already approved for classroom use.
The district then extended Halo to other departments, including Maintenance, Safety & Security, Translation Services, and the Warehouse, replacing disconnected request processes with a single system to manage work.
Alongside service workflows, Adams 12 centralised asset information in Halo by integrating their data warehouse and Device42, including Chromebook data managed through the district’s library system. With these foundations in place, the district began preparing to retire email-based ticket submission, reinforcing the portal as the primary entry point for support across schools.
“Halo has allowed us to see the actual volume of work that we have. It showed us what we were missing before, rather than the work suddenly increasing, it’s just work we couldn’t see clearly until now.”
– Logan Dykema, Information Technology Service Desk
The Results
What began as an ITSM replacement has evolved into a broader ESM platform supporting work across the district. Key results include:
- Expansion from ITSM to ESM, with Halo now used beyond IT to manage requests and workflows for functions such as Safety & Security, Facilities, Purchasing & Procurement, HR, Communications, and other operational teams.
- Growth from 50 to 182 licenses since joining Halo in November 2022, reflecting sustained adoption as additional teams moved onto the platform.
- 168 distinct ticket types in use, replacing generic submissions with clearly defined requests that improve routing, ownership, and consistency across departments.
- More consistent and controlled processes for approvals and shared work, with clearer ownership and fewer informal hand-offs compared to previous email- and spreadsheet-based methods.
"There’s probably not anyone on this planet at this point that I wouldn’t recommend Halo to, just because I’ve seen other tools and they just don’t measure up.”
– Jodie Turner, IT Director
Today, Adams 12 has a single, consistent way for staff across schools and departments to request support and for teams to manage work with shared standards and accountability.