The challenge
Kalispell Public Schools (KPS), located in Montana, serves a diverse and highly transient student population. With frequent student movement and new open enrollment legislation, the district needed a secure, scalable, and easy-to-use platform to transfer sensitive student information such as health records, Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), and enrollment files.
Sensitive student data is protected under FERPA and Montana's student privacy act (MTPOPIPA). With hackers increasingly targeting student records for identity theft, secure transfer of this information became non-negotiable.
The transient population made this a constant demand. Frequent student movement between districts meant a steady transfer of records — sometimes 50+ pages of health, assessment, and contact information per student. Printing, faxing, or insecure email was inefficient and risky.
"It's been just really easy for people to grasp and understand. Very rarely do we get somebody who says, 'I can't open this.'"
Kyra Ocker · State Reporter / Data Analyst for Enrollment, Kalispell Public Schools
A solution simple enough for the least tech-savvy users
Many staff members and external recipients were only comfortable with basic tools like fax machines. For any solution to succeed, it had to be intuitive, familiar, and easy to adopt. At the same time, new open enrollment legislation created a surge in paperwork, with nearly 800 parent-submitted forms last year alone, requiring secure digital intake and seamless routing to the right schools.
KPS rolled out SendSafely district-wide as the standard for secure file transfer. Adoption was rapid because the platform's simplicity eliminated barriers for both senders and recipients.
Key features driving adoption
With the Gmail integration, KPS employees simply click the SendSafely orange lock button directly within Gmail to secure their email and attachments. The integration lets them continue to "live in their email" with no new login or training required.
Hosted Dropzones let parents and partner districts upload documents securely with a simple link, avoiding fax machines and snail mail. Dropzones are easy to set up and scale, with administrators able to configure and manage them in minutes. Staff also love read receipts, which show whether recipients have opened files and enable proactive follow-up.
Usage quickly spread across departments: enrollment for the secure transfer of large student files (20–50 pages) between districts, nurses for sharing sensitive health information with doctors and parents, special education for distributing IEPs and assessment data, and HR for communicating benefits information with staff.
"When we sent out pages of invoices, people asked, 'What do you use? I really like this.'"
Kyra Ocker · State Reporter / Data Analyst for Enrollment, Kalispell Public Schools
