Homer Community Consolidated School District 33C

Homer School District 33C’s journey into a new era of cybersecurity began not with the latest technology, but with something far more mundane: paperwork.

An insurance form asked for the name of their endpoint detection and response (EDR) system.

That question hit differently, because at the District, cybersecurity isn’t a standalone department. It lives with the same small yet powerful IT team that resets passwords, fixes projectors, and keeps classrooms running.

Located about 30 miles south of Chicago, the District serves roughly 3,800 students across six schools (early childhood through eighth grade) and supports about 700 staff members.

Challenge | Protecting students at scale with a team of five

In the not-so-distant past, Homer School District 33C relied exclusively on Windows Defender Antivirus. It was installed locally on computers, and it wasn’t centrally managed or monitored.

Every day, the District had to stretch five people across help desk work and security responsibilities, without anyone dedicated solely to cybersecurity. And, for a time, that worked fine. Then one day, cyber insurance requirements made “good enough” no longer enough. 

Eric Nush, Director of Technology for Homer Community Consolidated School District 33C, explains that their insurance was “mandating that we have an EDR tool that includes centralized monitored and logging of all endpoint activity.” Without it, they couldn’t increase or renew coverage.

But since this is public education, budget pressure is constant. “Every dollar we spend on cybersecurity is a dollar we can’t spend on student instruction,” says Nush.

When the District started looking for a cybersecurity partner, the experience was revealing. Nush explains they considered some of the biggest names on the market. And when they reached out to vendors, some “wouldn’t even respond,” even though the District was ready to purchase.

Huntress stood out for reasons Nush calls out clearly:

• Affordability that still met requirements: “Huntress was the most inexpensive solution that met all of our needs.”

• Respect and responsiveness: “Huntress responded and treated us like humans, and they respected us.”

• A real trial in a real environment: The District underwent “a full-featured trial where we could actually see how it interacted and worked in our live environment.”

Solution | Local defenders gain central visibility—and Huntress watching 24/7

Adopting the Huntress Security Platform was a no-brainer. “The customer service, low costs, and ability to check every box made the decision easy,” says Nush. He also lauds Huntress for handling day-to-day cybersecurity 24/7, which empowers his IT team to focus on other priorities.

To meet insurance requirements (and bring sanity back to the team’s workload), the District rolled out Huntress as their primary protection across 600 endpoints, which included Windows PCs, servers, and Macs. As Nush puts it, “Huntress is our main catch-all for any form of malware or ransomware.”

Huntress also enhanced the District’s visibility into Windows Defender Antivirus by seamlessly integrating it with Managed EDR (at no additional cost). “Now we can quickly and easily see if Windows Defender is up to date on any computer,” says Nush. “We can see if they're compliant with our policies, when they were last scanning, and if they have any hits that we need to go investigate.”

And when rollout questions came up—like installing silently as they introduced MacBooks—Huntress support helped them work through it. The District also expanded into Huntress Managed Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Managed Security Awareness Training (SAT).

The District took a targeted approach to their SIEM implementation, enabling it for higher-risk devices. Nush credits this strategy to the predictability of Huntress’ billing model. Unlike other vendors who charge based on logs and storage, Huntress bills on a per-endpoint basis. This predictable structure allows Nush to forecast his budget accurately, eliminating concerns that a log-heavy month could unexpectedly deplete his IT funds early in the school year.

Results | Keeping the district running without burning out IT

To date, the District hasn’t had a “serious or critical” incident. But that doesn’t mean nothing happens.

Nush points to recurring adware, mostly “annoying toolbars that slows down and interfere with the staff members using the machines, modifies browsers, or switches search engine defaults.”

This is where the Huntress Security Operations Center (SOC)—a 24/7 team of elite threat analysts—earns their keep. 

“For all the minor incidents we’ve had, the SOC has been able to resolve everything instantly with minimal work on our end.” Nush adds that incident reports are “extremely detailed,” easy to follow, and written in plain language, not jargon.

And if something bigger ever hits, Nush appreciates that Managed EDR and Managed SIEM investigations stay under one roof with “the same analysts” and “the same SOC,” so the trail doesn’t get lost in handoffs.

Since deploying Huntress, the District has enjoyed:

• Renewed and increased cyber insurance coverage after meeting monitored EDR requirements.

• Faster resolution with less effort from IT: Nush notes, “Huntress notifies us, investigates, and remediates within minutes, and handles it all for us, before we even log into the platform.”

• Less day-to-day disruption by catching and removing adware that slows staff workflows.

• Clearer visibility into Windows Defender, including device status, scan activity, and potential threats worth investigating.

• Stronger security culture with Managed SAT: Nush states, “The number of staff that click on the phishing emails has greatly decreased,” and staff increasingly forward suspicious real emails so IT can investigate, remove, and block them.

Today, the District has a cybersecurity partner they can actually trust, someone who’s just a phone call away and brings the kind of specialized skills that most schools struggle to find. Nush is clearly a fan: he’s already “introduced about 30 other school districts to the Huntress Security Platform.”

With Huntress behind them, Homer School District 33C can keep teaching and learning uninterrupted, without burning out their small-but-mighty IT team.