Tift County Schools Improves Bottom Line with VoIP

Tift County Schools in Georgia was facing an all too common problem that school districts across North America regularly encounter: How to improve what it offers students without spending more money than the bottom line will allow.

Searching for the solution, Tift technology services director Harris Tucker decided to look into what Mitel (News - Alert) had to offer. What he discovered was that Mitel already had been working on just such a tricky equation for school districts everywhere, and had come up with the answer to how schools can subtract money from their communications costs while enhancing student outcomes through the improved flow of information between staff, parents and students.

In other words, if you want better grades, build a great IP communications system and they will come.

Tift County Schools, the board of education that serves the community of Tifton in southern Georgia, has approximately 7,500 students that attend one of the board’s 12 schools.

When Tucker was tasked with evolving a dated 1988 phone system into the modern world of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), he asked Mitel how it could help. Mitel did its homework and before long presented the plan he was hoping to hear.

Tift selected the Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP) with embedded standard unified messaging, auto-attendant, automatic call distribution (ACD) and wireless, along with more than 200 IP phones located across the district all with convenient four-digit dialing. The 3300 ICP can support an ever evolving range of desktop devices including entry-level IP phones, Web-enabled IP devices, wireless handsets (WiFi (News - Alert) or IP DECT) and full-duplex IP audio conference units. The solution also supports a suite of applications including multimedia collaboration, CRM, and unified messaging.

“Our existing telephone telecommunications environment was 14 individual and separate key phone systems,” said Tucker.

“The 179 phone lines we had cost Tift County U.S. $3,848 per month. The high school service cost U.S. $900 per month. On top of that, we paid for two long distance companies.

“The savings became apparent right away,” Tucker explained. “Our return on investment will allow us to recoup our investment in only two-and-a-half years, while the ongoing per-year savings can go to where it’s needed most — the education of the students.” Tucker calculates that in total, Tift County will be saving U.S. $50,160 per year on its new communications system.

Before deployment, the widespread schools were not able to transfer calls to other schools, the sole attendant had to answer incoming calls from the public as well as school staff from across the board, and the board of education. Additionally, Tift County deployed voicemail for the first time, and added an after-hours auto attendant to relay messages regarding school hours and if there are cancellations due to inclement weather.

To make communications easier still, parents now only have to call a single phone number to reach any school in Tifton County. With ACD, calls now get answered quickly and are rerouted correctly with a four-digit extension.

With Mitel’s solutions, Tift County has taken a giant leap forward by making communication between the schools and parents much more accessible. For example, in the past, teachers might not know why a student was absent from class until the next day when a note from home was brought in. However, if a student skipped classes he or she would enjoy that entire day without worry of being caught. With a phone in every classroom now, parents can call in and leave a message on that particular teacher’s voice mail, or even send a text message that scrolls across the teacher’s phone screen. If the teacher did not receive a good reason for an absence, he or she can call the student’s parents right from the classroom rather than waiting for a break in the day’s schedule.

The Georgia State Board of Education authorized the Department of Education to recognize Tift County Schools as a Title 1 Distinguished School District at its October 2005 meeting. Tift County was identified as a model for other school districts on closing the achievement gap for economically disadvantaged students.

“We’ve been very successful achieving our goals with the Mitel system,” said Tucker. “But not only are we saving money, we’re also offering students a better chance to succeed by opening up the lines of communications and helping their parents become more involved.” IT

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