Boone County Schools

School districts secure more than lesson plans and laptops. They protect student records, staff data, medical information, and the systems that keep classrooms running every day.

If something slips through—a stolen credential, a shady download, a suspicious login—it’s rarely dramatic at first. It starts silently, in the background, until someone realizes the problem is bigger than it looked.

Boone County Schools knew that the risk was real. The Kentucky district serves about 20,000 students, 3,500 staff members, and 28 campuses, all supported by a lean internal IT team. For Assistant Director of Instructional Technology Stephanie Younger, the mission was simple: get more proactive before something forced their hand. 

“We have so much data to protect. As a district, we’re deeply passionate about protecting the data of our staff and students. The information entrusted to us represents real people, real families, and real futures. We never want a single mistake or preventable incident to create lasting hardship for anyone we serve,” says Younger.

Challenge | A small team trying to secure a big environment

The challenge wasn’t just technical. It was also operational. Boone County’s push for better cybersecurity came at a time of major changes. The department had gone through quite a bit of turnover, so the team decided it was the right time to re-examine their overall security posture. They brought in a third party to run internal and external penetration tests, used those results as a starting point, and began working on a practical three-year plan.

Much of the hands-on cybersecurity work fell to Network Administrator Eric Funk, supported by Younger and a small internal committee of network administrators. That meant Boone County needed stronger protection, but they also needed something a small team could actually manage. As Younger put it, “We’re trying to be very intentional and realistic.”

Like many school systems, Boone County faced a steady stream of risks: credential theft, unsafe downloads, weak password hygiene, and suspicious VPN activity. Funk puts it plainly, saying, “Humans are always the weakest link.” 

But the district also had to strategize within the realities of public education, so it had to find tools that matched their actual risk, limited budget, and staffing constraints. Put simply, they couldn’t justify a bloated stack or round-the-clock, in-house coverage. 

Solution | Protecting the district where the risk is highest

Boone County chose the Huntress Security Platform because it solved practical problems.

First, the district needed stronger monitoring than what it was getting from their pre-existing solutions. “We needed something more robust,” Funk says, especially since the district isn’t an all-day operation. The Huntress Security Operations Center (SOC)—a 24/7 team of elite threat analysts backed by AI—helped close that gap by watching over the district’s environment after hours and taking action when needed. This allows Boone’s team to go home at the end of the day and simply step in and finish the work the next morning. Funk sums it up clearly: “Huntress watches over our environment when we’re not here.”

Second, Boone County needed a partner that understood risk-based security. The district wanted identity protection, but not every user carried the same level of risk. Faculty needed stronger protection than students, and Boone County wanted the flexibility to deploy accordingly. Other vendors the district evaluated wouldn’t allow that split.

“Huntress was the only outfit that said, ‘we’re going to work with you guys to separate those two,’” says Funk. “So that way, it’s economically feasible, and we still get the coverage that we need.”

Huntress also made life easier for a lean IT team that didn’t have time to bounce between tools. With endpoint and identity detection and response in one place, Boone County could triage faster and work from a streamlined dashboard instead of chasing issues across multiple consoles.

And any time something needs manual cleanup, the Huntress SOC makes the next steps clear. Funk says the remediation guidance from the SOC has been consistently reliable and easy to follow: “They’ve always been accurate. We’ve never had to stumble our way through a remediation.”

Results | Better coverage, less guesswork, and more confidence

Since deploying Huntress, Boone County has been able to:

• Extend protection beyond school hours with 24/7 monitoring and response support, without building a 24/7 internal SOC.
• Focus protection where risk is highest by separating staff and student coverage in a way that makes sense for Boone County’s budget.
• Catch common everyday threats earlier, including suspicious VPN use, credential-related issues, unsafe downloads, and poor password storage habits.
• Save time for a lean team by managing triage and remediation from a more centralized dashboard.
• Strengthen internal buy-in with reporting and documentation that helps leadership understand the value of cybersecurity investments in plain language.

For Boone County, the value goes beyond alerts and dashboards. Huntress has helped the district build a more proactive security culture—one grounded in real risk, shaped by the realities of public education, and backed by an elite team that can step in when needed.

Today, Boone County Schools is still doing the hardest part: educating young minds across a large, diverse district with limited staff and limited time. Huntress does their part to carry the load, providing 24/7 coverage and making the next steps clearer when something suspicious shows up.