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Holy Cross Academy Uses SIP Technology to Better Serve Students and Faculty

With just a few months to spare before the school session was to begin, Holy Cross Academy located in Fredericksburg, VA discovered their school’s phone and communications system was due for a major overhaul.

As with many organizations and businesses, Holy Cross Academy had no incentive to upgrade their legacy digital telephone system - that is until they began to experience dropped calls and interruptions to their service. Recognizing their current system was past its useful life cycle, they enlisted the help of EtherSpeak, Inc. a business communications firm based in Culpeper, VA to help them plan and implement a new and improved communications system.

After consulting with the board and staff of Holy Cross, it was concluded there were five main areas which needed to be addressed: creating a stable and feature rich communications platform, increasing internet bandwidth, improving faculty and staff communication processes, modernizing the school bell system, and lastly, updating a paging system for standard and emergency response communications.

New and Improved Communications Infrastructure

The existing legacy telephone system utilized regular telephone lines and a combination of digital and analog handsets, however a newer IP (Internet Protocol) based system would greatly increase the usability, flexibility and functionality which the previous system lacked.

In the case of Holy Cross Academy, an upgrade of their existing legacy telephone system would cost approximately the same as installing a brand new IP communications system. Therefore, although savings would not be immediately recognized, the long term investment would prove cost effective when factoring in the increased efficiencies and reduction of ongoing system maintenance costs.

Recognizing the value of a long term solution, Principal Sister Susan Louise Eder commented, “Patching our problems was not addressing the core of the issue. We wanted a reliable and updated system which would give our staff the ability to communicate more efficiently and would also provide better security for our students.”

New Unified Communications Platform

To increase communication efficiency, the Zultys MX250 Unified Communications platform was chosen as the foundation for call routing and intra-office communications. The MX250 is a SIP based Media Exchange server with capacity to support up to 250 users. This enables the school to expand and/or include extension offices and remote staff without requiring the purchase of additional hardware, thereby further protecting Holy Cross Academy’s financial investments. Since the MX250 is server based, updates and upgrades can be performed by downloading new software rather than purchasing additional equipment or needing to replace the old with new in order to accommodate such changes.

Upgrading Appliances

Holy Cross Academy installed fifteen IP desksets to replace the legacy digital handsets and was able to integrate twenty-two existing analog classroom handsets with the new communication system. Retention of the analog handsets in the classrooms enabled Holy Cross Academy to reduce the initial capital expenditure for the overall project. Future replacement of the analog handsets required only the purchase of the IP desksets, no additional hardware or software license purchases was required.

Previously, Holy Cross Academy frequently experienced an all circuit’s busy status on inbound and outbound calls with their existing telephone lines. Although required to continue to utilize their existing telephone lines (due to location constraints), Holy Cross Academy was able to increase their call handling capacity through the use of SIP trunks, a feature integral to the new IP communications platform. The use of DID (Direct Inward Dial) numbers and Least Cost Routing over SIP Trunks alleviated the occurrence of parents receiving busy signals when calling the academy and thereby being unable to reach staff and faculty.

Internet Connectivity and Bandwidth

In order to utilize SIP trunks, the issue of internet connectivity had to be addressed. Without a robust and stable internet connection, it would not be possible to provide voice over internet services. Their existing DSL service was slow and unreliable and would not sufficiently support the administration and student academic needs.

To address this issue, Dave Chronister, EtherSpeak’s Director of IT explains, “Partnering with the local school district for access, high speed internet up to 20M was extended to the school using point to point secure wireless. The infusion of stable high speed access not only bolstered the administration’s functionality and academics, but also enabled the use of low cost SIP trunks to augment the school’s voice services.”

Improved Communications among Faculty and Staff

The newly installed MX250 communications system offers the ability to Instant Message (IM) other group members, transfer calls, forward calls, and it provides digital voice mailboxes from a computer interface. Since each teacher had their own classroom with a dedicated computer, the new solution allowed for greater efficiency when communicating among staff.

All staff members now have an extension on the phone system, which may include either an assigned analog or IP Phone, along with a Graphic User Interface (GUI/MXIE) for access to phone system features including but not limited to voicemail, instant messaging, presence, etc. These features are designed to enhance communication allowing for quicker access to staff and key departments within the school.

Instant Messaging

Secure instant messaging enhances staff and faculty communications so that staff members are able to relay messages to teachers instantly, and teachers can access the messages at their convenience, decreasing classroom interruptions. Not only can they instant message other members, but they can instant message user created groups which eases the burden of communication when communicating with multiple members. These groups can be created on the fly from within a user’s MXIE GUI allowing for further ease and flexibility.

Presence

By installing the MXIE on each computer, users can see at a glance the online status of other users. For example, statuses can be set to Away, Available, Busy, etc. and allowed for the teacher to make a notation next to their online status with any details –such as “teaching now”, or for the In a Meeting status, they could write a note stating, “with parents – will be finished by 5PM”. This allows other staff to know at a glance what the status of anyone would be at any given point in time.

To illustrate another example: If the principle wanted to ask the 1st grade teacher a question – such as changing a last minute meeting date, the principle can first see if the teacher’s status is set to Available, on Phone or simply put as Busy. She could IM the teacher with the question and the teacher can reply back without any disruption to the class, such as speaking on the phone or having to leave the room to converse out in the hallway.

MXMeeting

MXMeeting makes it possible to conduct secure interactive meetings and education sessions for internal and external participants or invitees. Possible long term educational benefits of the platform include distance learning for students unable to attend school.

Customized and Sophisticated Bell System

As with any K-12 school schedule, having a bell system is critical because it audibly signals to both teachers and students throughout the school day when class has begun and when it has ended.

The old bell system was replaced with a new VALCOM Class Connections server paging system which is designed to work within a SIP environment. Because the VALCOM system is based on IP, Holy Cross’s new bell system was able to integrate with the Zultys PBX allowing much more customizable features and applications.

With the VALCOM server, all sounds and tones are stored as digital recordings in wav format. This enables customization and flexibility in ways not previously possible. Bell tones or sounds can be applied to particular events, classrooms etc. For example, the science lab could have crickets chirping or frogs croaking in place of the standard classroom change bell tone. The sounds can be customizable to be age appropriate, having different bell tones for the different grade levels.

The staff members of Holy Cross Academy are able to program the Bell system, creating zones, customizing tones and notifications rather than relying on outside vendors to support changes within the system, thus reducing ongoing costs.

In addition, the tones and schedules can be created and stored for future dates such as holidays and special events, making administrative oversight of the system more automated and easy to maintain.

Modernized and Interactive Paging System

Another area in need of updating was the paging system. Paging systems typically provide a means of communication from the main office to various areas of a school, either to one or more classrooms or school wide paging for various announcements, such as early school closings or announcing an upcoming fire drill test.

Originally equipped with a one way speaker system, communications were restricted to announcements delivered to classrooms, school zones or school wide. EtherSpeak installed new VALCOM SIP capable Talkback speakers which eliminated this barrier by allowing two way paging communications between the originating user and the receiving speaker, facilitating immediate acknowledgement of announcements and requests. The speakers are also designed with integrated digital clocks which are connected over Ethernet and use the National Government time server. This ensures all speakers with digital clocks are uniform and consistent.

In addition, all speakers are configured as extensions of the main Zultys MX250 system. Since each speaker holds its own extension, users can page any designated VALCOM Talkback speaker by dialing that extension through their IP SIP phone.

Multicast voice traffic, meaning communicating with multiple speakers, are configured and supported by the VALCOM server. In addition, staff members can easily set up paging Groups for quicker and faster communications among members.

Standard announcements paging announcements can be pre-recorded and scheduled to play at predetermined dates and times. However, announcements can be pre-recorded for use with nonscheduled occurrences or emergencies such as reporting a fire, injured student, fire drills, strong wind advisories, or even school lockdowns.

The VALCOM paging system deployed for Holy Cross Academy also comes with enhanced security through the use of private access codes, thus keeping the system secure. The paging system can be managed remotely from a single GUI, making it a practical solution when changes must be made by an administrator who may not be on site. Such approved users have the ability to trigger these broadcasts using cell phones/PDA, a Graphical User Interface on staff PC/laptop, or any office phone.

By improving their overall communications network infrastructure and systems, Holy Cross Academy has taken the proper steps towards safeguarding their school from what many organizations suffer from - lack of foresight. Instead of merely ignoring the symptoms of an aging and inadequate system, Holy Cross Academy chose to invest in new technology in order to better serve the parents and children they so greatly value and appreciate.

EtherSpeak was able to perform the install all the while leaving the existing analog system in place allowing school administrators to go about their regular business with minimal interruption. The project was completed by the end of summer and students were met with a safer more secure environment thanks to the prudence and ingenuity of both HCA officials and EtherSpeak.

About:

Holy Cross Academy is accredited by the Virginia Catholic Education Association. Located in Fredericksburg, VA, they provide the educational services for children from preschool through the eighth grade. For more information visit: www.holycrossweb.com or call (540) 286-1600.

EtherSpeak, Inc. is an IP solutions provider headquartered in Culpeper, VA providing business services such as SIP trunking, internet faxing, enhanced security through encryption, managed connectivity and disaster recovery services. For more information, visit www.ietherspeak.com or call (866) 384-3747. To fill out a contact form, please visit here.

Zultys delivers leading edge, comprehensive unified communication solutions that are flexible, easy to use and cost effective to businesses of all sizes helping them improve their productivity, enhance customer service, reduce costs, grow sales and make greater profits. To learn more visit: www.zultys.com.

VALCOM provides unique and extensive experience in IP and analog voice paging systems. They are known for providing guidance and assistance in implementing simple paging systems to complex mass notification solutions. Their customer base includes Fortune 500 companies, government and over 35,000 schools, plus more. More information can be found at: www.valcom.com.