Emergency Notification System Archives

School Safety Lessons Learned from the 2022–2023 School Year

WSI Comandix on May 5, 2023

While school shooting tragedies continue to flood the headlines of our local and national news outlets (with 16 school shootings this year alone), district stakeholders are doing what they can to prevent such incidents from occurring in their own school communities.

And if you find yourself among those committed to making their school communities safer, we want you to know this: You are not alone in your efforts.

As the school year draws to a close, our team is taking a look back at the school safety and communications lessons we’ve learned. We encourage you to read through the insights we’ve shared below as actionable lessons to help improve your safety profile.

… because when it comes to school safety, we’re all in this together.

Lesson #1: There Are Lessons to Learn and Common Challenges to Tackle as School Leaders

In the wake of tragedy, what can we really stand to learn from incidents like the one in Uvalde, Texas?

That question is a meaningful one. And our team explored these lessons learned from Uvalde in our seminar, Deconstructing Uvalde: Leveraging Technology for Safer Schools this spring. We reviewed the key takeaways from that series further in a recent blog which you’ll find here.

At Eastern DataComm, we believe that these key learnings can inform schools and districts across the country to enhance the ways they stay connected and protected during an emergency.

If you find after reading these articles that you’re interested in exploring how best to leverage technology to keep your school safe, connect with us. Our diagnostic and consultative approach to school safety and communications technology allows us to tailor solutions to meet the needs of your unique school community.

Lesson #2: Reliance on Apps Alone Is Not Enough to Keep Your School Safe and Secure

This year has shed light on how sole reliance on app-only solutions is simply not sufficient when it comes to emergency notification and response. Though they are one piece of the puzzle, they do not complete the full school safety picture when used in isolation.

In addition to ensuring your campus grounds and buildings benefit from total coverage, it’s vital to create a school safety ecosystem that provides a variety of notifications to address the needs of your school staff, students, parents, and visitors. From enabling substitutes to have a way to receive lockdown notifications to ensuring that students with hearing impairments can receive emergency notifications visually through lights and sign boards, there are so many ways to enhance your school’s ability to respond comprehensively when every moment counts.

This year, in addition to our blog detailing the pitfalls of app-only solutions, we also hosted a webinar called “Why Apps Are Not Enough: How Holistic, Comprehensive Approaches to School Safety Save Lives”, which you can find on our Webinar page here.

The bottom line when it comes to app-only approaches is this: Their shortcomings can be addressed by leveraging other technology solutions working in unison that ensure everyone gets the message and can respond accordingly during an emergency situation.

Lesson #3: Access Control and Video Surveillance Are Vital to School Safety and Security

From controlling who enters your building with access control systems to keeping an eye on your buildings and grounds with video surveillance, there are several noteworthy security technologies that you can use to secure your district or school.

The right access control system can make all the difference, and the same is true of the right video surveillance solution.

And as the next school year draws closer, it may be time for you and your district stakeholders to consider adding these technologies to your school’s safety ecosystem or upgrading existing systems so they’re as effective as possible.

Why focus on these two systems?

Well, aside from their individual benefits, it’s worth noting that these two solutions work together to show where an active threat is located. This empowers law enforcement to be prepared and to respond effectively in the most dire circumstances. You can also integrate these systems with your federally compliant multi-line VoIP phone systems to ensure speedy communication with first responders and emergency services. This is just one more way to take your safety and physical security profile to the next level.

Lesson #4: Don’t Forget That Money to Support Your School’s Safety Is Available

According to Campus Safety Magazine, there is a push for legislation that would increase school safety and security funding. And in the meantime, there are a variety of federal grant programs with open applications.

In fact, Eastern Datacomm shared the details on a number of them earlier this year in one of our recent blogs.

So, if budgetary restrictions are holding you back from making investments to improve your school safety ecosystem, be sure to check out the potential grant opportunities and reach out to our team if you have any questions as you move forward.

Lesson #5: Integration and Technology Systems Working in Unison Are the Future of School Safety and Security

Given all that we’ve learned this school year, it’s very appropriate to spend a moment exploring the benefits of a comprehensive, integrated solution for your emergency notification solution needs.

Our Lockdown and Emergency Notification System and continuous monitoring service, LENS + OPTICS, can augment communications and enhance safety during an emergency. In fact, this solution brings together VoIP phone systems, paging systems, bells and clocks, signboards, and video surveillance to remove the chance for human error and increase your ability to respond quickly and effectively when it matters most.

And you can learn more about why LENS + OPTICS is the emergency notification system that schools rely upon to safeguard their communities by clicking here.

Prepare for Next School Year with Eastern DataComm

Ready to ensure your school or district stays connected and protected next year?

Reserve your complimentary consultation with our team to explore how we can help!

6 Key Insights on Emergency Notification From Our Latest Live School Safety Seminar Series

WSI Comandix on April 24, 2023

Our Eastern DataComm team recently hosted a series of live, in-person seminars spanning New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut. School officials and stakeholders whose responsibility it is to ensure the safety of their campuses came from far and wide to join us for this educational experience. The series was incredibly well-received by our attendees and today, we’re sharing the key takeaways from the seminars so you can benefit from the insight we offered, even if you could not join us at one of the locations for the live events.

1) Apps Are Not Enough

One of the biggest takeaways many attendees received from our latest seminar series was the understanding that apps alone are not enough to sufficiently connect and protect their communities in an emergency situation. While those who fell victim to the active shooter in Uvalde, TX, had an app, bad cell service rendered it ineffectual. And this is not simply an issue faced by that single Texas elementary school. Across the country, schools, especially those with older buildings, struggle with less-than-effective cell service. This can not only slow down app-based notifications, but it can also prevent them from working at all. The result: some people do not receive the notification, and that can place them in imminent danger. Another key point worth mentioning: apps such as the one used in this case study only work IF the user has their phone with them and is able to access it. Oftentimes, this isn’t the case for teachers and students in the course of their daily educational and extracurricular activities.

You can learn more about the significant limitations of phone application-only emergency notification solutions in our past webinar on the subject here. You’ll also discover how a comprehensive school safety ecosystem, featuring integrated technology, can offer you a more robust alternative that’s far more effective when every second counts.

2) ‘Full Coverage’ Is of the Utmost Importance

Another key takeaway from our latest in-person School Safety seminar series was the importance of total coverage. This phrase means that all people in your buildings and on your grounds, from substitute teachers and visitors to staff and students, quickly receive emergency notifications. In addition, those emergency notifications must be clear, concise, and prompt action that is an appropriate response for the situation at hand.

And far from being simply a buzz phrase, total coverage is the cornerstone of keeping your school and those in it connected and protected.

While it may seem obvious to some, often stakeholders do not realize where vulnerabilities in coverage may exist until an emergency occurs.

At that point, the safety of the campus and grounds are placed in jeopardy as a result.

The Eastern DataComm team takes the time to understand your needs and your potential areas of vulnerability when it comes to total coverage and effective mass notification.

3) Understanding Your Areas of Potential Vulnerability Is Essential

According to a recent survey by School Safety Magazine, school officials were often pleased with flexible, fast, and reliable systems that allow for a variety of swift and clear communication approaches. Those communications either exist or occur within the same system (like SMS messages, sirens, push notifications, automated phone calls, on-screen communication, and more). This integrated, multimodal technology approach makes their systems versatile for unique student populations and a myriad of challenging school situations that may occur before, during, and/or after school emergencies.

From recognizing the needs of your unique student populations to dealing with communication issues in remote areas of your campus, you may face a variety of potential vulnerabilities when it comes to ensuring everyone on your campus can effectively receive notifications, understand what those messages/signals mean, and respond accordingly during an emergency.

As we shared with our seminar attendees, we offer a diagnostic and consultative approach to school safety that takes the guesswork out of improving your school safety ecosystem.

Part of this process includes asking questions about your school environment, current technology, and what you need your safety and physical security solutions to achieve for you.

As we connect with you, we pay careful attention to the needs of the population that traffics your campus. This allows our team to deliver a comprehensive system that not only quickly and accurately communicates with your school community, but also allows them to easily understand what those emergency notifications mean – regardless of sensory ability.

When analyzing your current school safety profile, our team not only recognizes areas where you exceed safety guidelines, but we also explore where vulnerabilities exist to offer potential improvements you could make to enhance your safety, communications, and physical security technology.

Simply put: We help you discover the changes you can make to keep your community connected and protected.

4) Policies and Procedures Are Simply One Part of the Equation

The right policies and procedures are no doubt effective ways to keep your school districts safe, but as we shared with our attendees when we discussed the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting tragedy, there are factors beyond policy that can enhance your ability to follow those procedures when the time comes.

Executing what you and your school community practiced during drills is an exercise in consistency.

Drills, when coupled with the right technology, can bring down response time and bring up the safety and security of your buildings and grounds during an emergency.

As one of our customers will attest to, “With our drills, we’re locked down, basically clearing the halls within 10 seconds … And the more quickly we secure the buildings, that’s more lives that we’re going to save.“

Burlington County, NJ School District Safety and Emergency Management Coordinator

So, while we always encourage our customers to continue rehearsing for potential emergency situations through drills and enhancing policy or procedure to keep up with evolving safety needs, we also help them couple those practices with the right communications and safety technology solutions. This empowers our customers to feel confident that they’re doing all they can to keep those entrusted in their care safe and sound.

5) Clear Communication Is Part of the Safe Response Process

When you’re notifying an entire campus of an active threat or emergency situation, you need your messages to come through quickly and clearly. That way, the response from law enforcement and first responders can occur rapidly – mitigating damage and saving lives.

According to the aforementioned School Safety Magazine Survey, challenges with message delivery verification impacted over 20% of respondents, and 23% had issues with the clarity of their sirens and loudspeakers.

Despite these challenges, or perhaps because of them, over 40% of K–12 campuses plan to upgrade a variety of notification technologies including their paging systems and intercoms.

And as we explained to our School Safety seminar attendees, our LENS + OPTICS system includes the ability to create a conference call with key stakeholders.

With our state-of-the-art visual and audio communication technology, paging system announcements, signboards, emergency calls to first responders, and other approaches to communication are fully automated. Working with telephony industry leader Mitel, phone systems allow for an added layer of security ensuring those you contact can hear you loud and clear when it matters most.

The result is streamlined communication that allows you to focus on responding in that moment – be you a student on camera or a police officer arriving at the scene. Ultimately, clear communication delivered through the use of integrated, multimodal technology keeps everyone safe.

6) Integrating Your Technology Removes Potential Human Error

School Safety Magazine recently surveyed respondents to understand the challenges they faced when creating effective mass notification approaches for their schools and districts.

Those challenges included:

a lack of support from vendors
few, if any, options for flexible integration with new technology
time delays in message delivery
an undersupply of visual alert lights
failing speakers or paging devices
need for total coverage in areas like outdoor fields, cafeterias, and gyms

The respondents shared that they were looking for more from their emergency notification and response technologies. And at Eastern DataComm, through years of listening and attending to those pain points for our customers in the education, business, and municipal sectors, we know exactly what they mean. That’s why we do things differently.

When you rely on your teachers, volunteers, staff, or administrators to execute every step of your mass notification and emergency response process manually, you run the risk of human error. Even the most well-trained stakeholders can make a mistake when tensions are high and time is of the essence.

As we shared with our attendees, this is the exact reason you’ll want a streamlined, comprehensive, and integrated emergency response system.

From video surveillance and FCC-compliant multi-line phone systems to access control and emergency response notifications, when everything is working together seamlessly in a self-monitoring system you have greater peace of mind.

And if it sounds too good to be true, rest assured it’s not.

At Eastern DataComm, we call LENS + OPTICS our solution to the challenges that have plagued school officials when addressing their comprehensive school safety concerns.

When every second counts, you can rely upon our lockdown and emergency notification system and continuous monitoring service (LENS + OPTICS) to help you quickly and effectively communicate danger and save lives.

LENS + OPTICS allows you to instantly alert everyone during a critical situation. At the push of a button, you can automatically institute a lockdown, evacuation, or shelter-in-place during an active threat or other emergency.

And because technology is at the core of this response, you remove the chance for human error.

Keep Your School Connected and Protected with Eastern DataComm

Want to find the best ways to enhance your school or district’s emergency response and mass notification systems so that clear communication keeps everyone safe?

Reserve your complimentary consultation with our team to explore your options!

The Safety Implications and Importance of Total Coverage

WSI Comandix on November 7, 2022

Our nation seems to be locked in an unending battle to keep our school communities safe havens for learning and growth, free from violent acts like the active shooter tragedies that have left in their wake unimaginable devastation. Unceasingly, education and law enforcement officials wrestle with what to do to keep their students, faculty, staff, and visitors safe during an emergency. At Eastern DataComm, we have been helping US schools transform their emergency notification with customized, integrated technology solutions for years. And today, we’re sharing one of the most essential components of emergency notification: total emergency communication coverage.

What Does Total Coverage Really Mean and Why Is That Benchmark Too Often Missed?

‘Total coverage’ means that everyone within school buildings and on campus grounds – and we do mean everyone, from students to new substitute teachers to visitors – can swiftly receive and understand emergency notifications. This cornerstone of the school safety ecosystem may seem like an obvious one. However, countless times, during our School Safety Audits, we unearth vulnerabilities that truly take an expert eye to be able to reveal. Though safety is a paramount concern for all school officials, it takes a partner with both the technology savvy and thorough understanding of school operations and facilities to map out and execute the solution implementation that achieves total coverage.

That said, we find at times that schools are unknowingly providing safety solutions that only achieve partial coverage. While it’s clear that such an oversight is not intentional, it may lead to a false sense of security when there are potentially devastating gaps in the emergency notification process.

Missing the total coverage benchmark may look different depending on the school. Perhaps an older paging system is in use that still ‘works’, but doesn’t deliver messages that are clearly audible and able to be understood by all. Alternatively, there may not be enough speakers in loud or outdoor areas, so again, a message can be missed when there are other sound/noise elements at play. Another frequent case we encounter is that some schools will opt to rely on a single mode of notification like a text alert-only system to provide notifications without realizing that single-mode communication has notable downsides.

In each of these cases, there is a greater chance that someone or a group of people may not receive or understand the emergency notification in a way that allows them to respond accordingly when every second counts.

What Total Coverage and True Preparedness Looks Like

Families, school leaders, and district administrators know that unless 100% of those in their buildings and on their grounds are notified in the event of an emergency, they’re not truly prepared to respond fully. Lack of total coverage introduces the possibility for error and puts people in harm’s way.

In light of this knowledge, it’s important to consider what true preparedness through total coverage means for school communities and districts.

The key to achieving total coverage is the ability to use technology solutions like the paging and related systems as comprehensively as possible. Complete coverage, no doubt, includes an indoor and outdoor PA system and accompanying wireless speakers. It will also include visual cues such as LED beacons and signboards in high-volume or noise-polluted areas such as cafeterias, gymnasiums, and music rooms. The goal is to have both auditory and visual cues reach such spaces, even the remote areas like parking lots and sports fields.

This multimodal approach to total coverage ensures that no matter where someone might be on your school campus grounds, they can be easily and near-instantaneously made aware of an emergency situation once the threat is recognized.

Common Challenges to Achieving Total Coverage

While total coverage is an extremely important component of the school safety ecosystem, there are often factors that can impede a school community from achieving it.

The challenges to overcome may include, but are not limited to:

Loud areas within a building (like cafeterias and gyms)
Distant outdoor spaces (like remote parking lots and sports fields)
Areas where students don’t have phone/smart device access (like technical education classrooms, athletic practices, or labs)
Unique structural design considerations (especially in older buildings) that can impair signal, and ultimately message reception

Additional considerations are at play for schools that serve special needs or other unique populations when emergency notification and communication are concerned. This warrants solutions that are custom-tailored to enable all present on campus to know of an impending threat regardless of ability.

We’ve found that administrators and leaders at these schools understand this critical importance. When it comes to their pursuit of total coverage, it’s of top priority that they do all they can to understand potential shortcomings in their emergency notification approach. Through careful examination of facilities and daily operations, it becomes possible to ensure that these students are able to receive and act upon emergency notifications.

This is especially true when a school has a unique population. When working with St. Joseph’s School for the Blind, for example, Eastern DataComm collaborated with school officials to design a solution and develop a project plan that recognized the needs of the students with special needs, specifically visual impairments. The system featured multimodal approaches to notification that went beyond typical text or audio notification. This resulted in a custom-tailored solution that keeps all persons on campus connected and protected.

Total Coverage Is Unique to You

Just as schools that serve special populations must address some unique facets of total coverage, it’s important to understand that your school or district’s total coverage solution will look different than another school or district’s approach. Through serving hundreds of schools over the years, our team has learned that it is the absolute truth: No two schools are exactly alike. Your needs and vulnerabilities will inform how you set your school up for success and how you address your school’s challenges to achieve total notification coverage.

At Eastern DataComm, we understand comprehensive system design and work with your building and facility managers to best serve your school’s structural blueprint in unison with your existing technology footprint. We strive for a seamless integration that allows for all systems, across facilities, to work together to provide the best in total coverage.

For instance, some areas incur more noise pollution than others. We adapt our approach to ensure there is no disruption of emergency notification messaging, regardless of competing sounds. The result is not simply the placement across the entirety of your school grounds, but the use of additional speakers, or visual cues like signboards and LED beacons where you need them most (from technical education classrooms and gyms to fields and parking lots).

Total Coverage Means Taking Sound Quality and Audibility Seriously

Another important aspect of total coverage involves working with a technology partner that understands the vital part audibility and sound quality play when it comes to emergency notification.

Just as you wouldn’t rely on a single mode of notification, you don’t want to rely on a mode of communication that’s hard to hear or comprehend.

At Eastern DataComm, our consultative and diagnostic process involves an in-depth approach to evaluating your needs. We don’t rely on any ‘guess and check’ approaches to technology solution implementation because our methodology is practical, not just theoretical. Our assessment uses tactics to get a true sense of your school campus’s needs, strengths, and potential vulnerabilities. We use that information to inform the recommendations we make regarding how you and your school community can achieve total coverage.

And because we’ve been working for years with hundreds of schools of various sizes and populations, you can feel confident that you’ve chosen the right technology partner. No matter the scale of what comprises your buildings and grounds, we have the prior project experience and practical knowledge to give you the best-in-class safety and communications solutions.

Understanding, for example, how elements like carpet, hardwood, cement walls, student activity, and indoor or outdoor space can impact the acoustics of a space or otherwise impact the ability for notification to be received and understood – that expertise separates us from others in the field who provide one-size-fits-all solutions that leave vulnerabilities on the table and potential for catastrophe to creep in to a school’s safety ecosystem. When you work with Eastern DataComm, the result is total coverage when you need it most.

Bring Total Coverage to Your School Community with Eastern DataComm

For a comprehensive approach to keeping your community safe through total emergency notifications coverage, contact Eastern DataComm for a complimentary School Safety Consultation.

Empowering Schools With Insight That Helps Protect Their Communities

WSI Comandix on September 8, 2022

With the Parkland school shooting trial making headlines and the memory of the recent Uvalde, Texas, shooting in mind, there’s no more pressing a time than now to focus on school district campus-wide safety protocols.

At Eastern DataComm, we’re as committed as ever to empowering school districts across the country to take proactive steps in protecting their school communities, with the goal of preventing incidents like those named above and a long list of others from ever happening again. Responding effectively and swiftly should these potentially devastating events transpire is the absolute best way to mitigate damage and loss of life.

For this reason, our team will be traveling near and far this fall to host an educational seminar series called What Schools Must Do to Prepare for a Lockdown or an Active Shooter Event. We’ll be visiting a number of towns in New Jersey and Connecticut, doing our part to share this valuable information with school officials. We’ll continue to expand our footprint with these educational opportunities, so stay tuned for when our team will be in a town near you.

Today, we’d like to share a preview of those presentations with you so you know what is in store for our attendees with the hopes that you’ll be joining us in the upcoming weeks.

What We’ll Cover In Our Upcoming Seminars

Our presentation is engineered to support K–12 Superintendents and Business Administrators, School Safety and Security Professionals, School District IT Professionals, Higher Education Administrators, and those entrusted with ensuring the safety of school district students, faculty, and staff within your district.

What Schools Must Do to Prepare for a Lockdown or an Active Shooter Event is a workshop designed to assist school leaders in understanding how they can leverage technology to create safer schools inside and out.

In addition to detailing the key elements of school safety ecosystems and the challenges schools face when dealing with active threats, we’ll share insight on how emergency notification solutions, access control systems, video surveillance systems, and multi-line VoIP phone systems can help schools effectively respond to emergencies like active shooter incidents. We’ll share what other districts have done to successfully improve safety within their schools so that attendees can benefit from real-world experiences that others in their field have faced.

We’ll define the 3 principles every emergency notification solution needs to address to be effective in a crisis and why recent legislation and guidelines may fall short of thoroughly preparing schools for a lockdown or active shooter event. Seeing is believing. We’ll provide a live demonstration of Eastern DataComm’s emergency notification system and continuous monitoring service, LENS + OPTICS, to show attendees exactly how technology can and should work in their favor to help avert disaster.

Practical Insight And Interactive Feedback On Active Shooter Response

The workshop will also provide examples that explore the previous active shooter events that made national headlines. Our presenter, Eastern DataComm’s School Safety Advisor, Paul Jenne, will breakdown how these events unfolded and provide practical solutions to address the failure points that led to these tragic outcomes.

We’ll conclude the workshop with a discussion featuring thought leaders in education and technology, along with an audience Q&A. We encourage all of our attendees to come prepared with lots of questions for our team of experts to answer.

In addition to the vital information we shared last year, we’ll be discussing the recent shootings that made headlines, and how a comprehensive system to effectively respond to such events includes technology solutions like emergency notification, phone systems, paging, video surveillance, and access control.

If you attended last year’s seminar, there is certainly more to be learned and new ground to cover. With the content entirely refreshed for a new school year, we’re looking forward to seeing both new and familiar faces in the crowd.

We’ll also tackle some of our most-asked school safety questions we’ve heard from educators across the nation. Some of those queries include:

How do we ensure notifications cover the entire property in an urban environment or an open campus environment?
What if your campus does not have an overhead intercom system?
How can you send an emergency announcement from outside the building?
Do all VoIP systems work with e-911?
If budget is limited, and a school needs to prioritize which aspects of safety technology they need to upgrade first, where would you recommend they start?
Is there a way to monitor an emergency notification system to ensure it is working optimally?

A Workshop That Helps You Prepare For Moments When Every Second Counts

In an active shooter event or other emergency warranting a lockdown or shelter-in-place, every second counts. We firmly believe that when it comes to school safety, we’re all in this together.

That’s why we’re offering this presentation in a variety of locations this fall with more to come in the spring.

Our goal is to help as many schools as possible prevent devastating incidents. Though we cannot stop someone from deciding to perpetrate horrendous acts, we can and will do our best to stop them from doing the damage they intend to inflict.

Connect With Us And Join Us For The Workshop This Fall

We’d love to welcome you to one of our upcoming events. Please be sure to follow us on social media to keep apprised of the latest educational opportunities in your area. You can also check back on our Seminar page to see when and where new locations are added. Our current roster includes:

Thursday, October 6 – Maggiano’s of Hackensack, NJ

Tuesday, October 11 – Hartford, CT Marriott

Wednesday, October 12 – Stamford, CT Marriott

Tuesday, October 18 – Maggiano’s of Cherry Hill, NJ

Wednesday, October 19 – Maggiano’s of Bridgewater, NJ

Ready to explore the best ways to keep your school or district safe this fall before our seminars commence? Contact us here to schedule a Complimentary School Safety Consultation.

Back-To-School: Considerations For Safety + Security In The New School Year

WSI Comandix on August 2, 2022

A new school year is upon us. In light of the continuous string of headlines speaking to mass shootings and acts of violence taking place on campuses across the country, it’s important to focus on what can be done to ensure safety and security as we enter this academic year.

Whether that means updating an emergency operations plan or finding innovative ways to leverage technology so that we reduce room for human error during emergencies, there’s much to consider.

There’s never been a more important time to pause, reflect, and take action because lives are at risk. In fact, as of July 2022, there have been 120 school shootings since the 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School. Those shootings have resulted in hundreds of injuries and deaths, as well as families and communities that remain grieving those losses.

From Virginia Tech to Stoneman Douglas to Uvalde, these names remind us of the devastating loss of life that shook our nation and paralyzed the local school communities that they call home.

In today’s blog, we’re sharing insight from our own experience and guidance from vital resources like the U.S. Department of Education regarding how to enhance the safety and physical security of your school district and provide better protection of our children, staff, and visitors through the use of the latest advancements in school safety systems technology.

The Importance of Diagnosing Needs and Consulting with Professionals to Increase School Safety

One of the first steps a district can make when exploring how to improve their school safety system is to consider areas of vulnerability.

At Eastern DataComm, we collaborate with our clients to diagnose and address their unique needs and the challenges they face. The result is a game plan that recognizes their school’s strengths, while recommending technology solutions that help to provide for swifter response times and more effective actions overall.

The importance of this step is that we do not assume that drills or standard measures are sufficient in isolation. In our own recommendations to customers, we also offer insight from other professionals with safety, security, and compliance backgrounds to help guide the process. While following protocols and executing drills are vital pieces to the puzzle, there are other potential ways to enhance campus safety beyond them.

In our recent webinar, Connected & Protected: Why Most Schools Are NOT Fully Prepared for an Active Shooter Event, Eastern DataComm’s Paul Jenne and Porzio Compliance Services’ Kevin Craig, our co-presenters, shared how compliance and technology intersect to foster safer schools and prevent future tragedies before they occur.

Once we’ve diagnosed potential areas for improvement, we can begin to explore how to strengthen the effectiveness of our school’s Emergency Operations Plans.

Implementing Collaborative, Effective Emergency Operations Plans for Every Stage of an Urgent Event

From prevention to recovery, there are safety and security concerns that impact each stage of an emergency. That’s why having an effective emergency response plan (ERP) or emergency operations plan (EOP) is so vital.

Several trusted resources have insight for those wondering how to further enhance their school’s safety and security plans and protocols.

According to The U.S. Department of Education’s Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans (Created in concert with the US Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice, FBI, and FEMA), school emergency response planning should be comprehensive and must:

Be supported by leadership
Use assessment to customize plans to the building level
Consider all threats and hazards
Provide for the access and functional needs of the whole community (including those with disabilities or accessibility needs)
Consider all settings and times

With these guidelines in place, schools can more effectively prepare for and respond to emergencies like active shooter events.

In addition to creating plans that are comprehensive, it’s also important to mention that they should be collaborative as well. The National School Board Association’s Fostering Safer Schools: A Legal Guide for School Board Members on School Safety notes that school safety is, of course, the first daily priority of every school. The guide encourages schools to work collaboratively with community agencies, the public, families, and others to ensure that all are actively invested in the safety of the school community. It also encourages schools to work in concert with local law enforcement as they work toward greater safety in schools. For this reason, Eastern DataComm has engineered LENS +OPTICS, our emergency notification system and continuous monitoring service, to encompass communication to alert all on campus of a lockdown event as well as the proper law enforcement officials and first responders.

Finally, emergency plans should recognize that the event itself is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to fostering safer schools. The U.S. Department of Education’s insight on creating emergency management plans notes the importance of prevention, preparedness, and recovery. These four stages can be applied to a variety of incidents. Considering crises like active shooter situations in this light can allow school officials to identify their areas of strength, as well as areas where they’d like to enhance their efforts to better secure the school for the safety of their staff, students, and visitors.

Integrate Technology to Reduce the Potential for Human Error During Emergencies

Even with a solid plan in place, responding to an emergency has the potential to include human error. In an active shooter event, there are high-stakes, urgent tasks that must be carried out, and the potential for lives to be on the line. If left to people’s decision-making capabilities alone, emotions may hinder their execution.

Therefore, it’s important that, wherever possible, we reduce the potential for human error.

This means that emergency response should include automation wherever it’s possible and especially where it’s most impactful.

Given what we’ve discussed thus far, this also means that whatever notification and communication procedures or technologies we put in place, all students, staff, and visitors (regardless of accessibility needs or disability status) should be able to benefit from their implementation. This ensures that everyone remains safe during the incident.

At Eastern DataComm, we’ve been helping to protect schools and districts for decades. Along the way, we’ve developed our Lockdown Emergency Notification System (LENS+OPTICS). LENS + OPTICS is a comprehensive notification platform that integrates with your school’s phone, paging, and access control systems. You can activate the system at the push of a button, by dialing a code from a campus phone, or by using a special application on your smartphone. Once activated, emergency communication is fast and automatic, drastically reducing the risk of human error.

To ensure everyone on campus is aware of the lockdown in progress, LENS sends pre-recorded announcements over the PA system, activates LED beacons and signboards, makes calls to cell phones and desk phones, delivers PC pop-ups, emails, text messages, and prerecorded calls to law enforcement and first responders. It also integrates with video surveillance and access control systems for added security, creating a full picture of what is going on and where it is occurring during an emergency event. OPTICS provides continuous monitoring of components that influence the system health of LENS so you don’t lose focus on your school’s safety.

When we implement a LENS + OPTICS solution in a school building or across a school district, we take a collaborative and diagnostic approach. This ensures a right fit with the unique needs of the school campus, seamless integration with existing technology, effective communication with local resources like the police, and a truly comprehensive approach to removing the potential for human error during an emergency situation.

Connect with Us to Enhance Your School’s Safety and Security

If you’d like to learn more about how Eastern DataComm can help enhance the safety and physical security of your school district, municipality, or business, schedule a complimentary safety consultation with us today.

Technology and the School Safety Ecosystem: Fostering Safer Schools

WSI Comandix on July 1, 2022

There are a variety of channels that encompass the ‘safety ecosystem’ in schools. School safety and police officers, training, threat assessment, procedures and protocols for emergencies, compliance, and technology infrastructure essentials like emergency notification systems, video surveillance, and access control systems can all play a vital role in keeping schools and districts safe before, during, and after emergencies like active shooter events.

But, just how can school districts apply this multichannel safety and communications approach to their own campuses to prevent tragedies like the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas?

Let’s explore the connection between effective emergency response plans and the technology that supports them as part of the comprehensive school safety ecosystem.

The School Safety Ecosystem and Planning For Emergencies

The school safety ecosystem includes a wide range of considerations, personnel, and components – including process, protocol, technology. When considering the ecosystem as a whole, it’s important to recognize that the composition of each school is unique, each with its own geographic layout, infrastructure, and communications needs. That means the plans that will be most effective in an emergency are equally distinctive.

In The Building Blocks To School Safety Toolkit from the Readiness and Emergency Management For Schools Technical Assistance Center, The U.S. Department of Education outlines the tools school districts can use to develop effective emergency operations plans (EOPs). It notes that high-quality emergency plans are supported by school safety ecosystem elements including leadership and technology infrastructure. The report also recognizes the importance of considering times and circumstances, customizing plans at the building-by-building level, and addressing the unique needs of the entire school community.

At Eastern DataComm, our consultative and diagnostic approach allows us to ensure that our customers’ school safety and security technology infrastructure supports such plans.

The customized solutions we recommend and implement for the school districts we serve connect key aspects of the school safety ecosystem like law enforcement, prevention, communication, risk management, and technology. These approaches are designed to enhance communication within and between the different parts of that system, creating a comprehensive approach to emergency response.

We work with clients to personalize their technology solutions, including their emergency notification systems, to the specific needs of their individual schools and (where appropriate) the district as a whole.

In the National Institute of Justice’s Comprehensive Report on School Safety Technology, the U.S. Department of Justice notes that technologies like connecting security systems to mobile devices, using cloud-based systems, enhanced video surveillance, and integrated hardware and software can be part of effective school safety technology infrastructure.

The report further states that decisions about investing in such security technologies are multilayer assessments that need to account for the school district’s unique economic and logistical factors among others. The Department of Justice recommends a comprehensive and collaborative evaluation and planning process before selecting technology solutions.

Learning From Tragedy: Using Technology to Reduce The Chances Of Human Error During Emergency Events

When it comes to emergencies, it goes without saying that the one hope is that everyone involved will do the best that they can to respond effectively. However, the stress and urgency of the moment can lead to human error that can cost both time and lives.

As such, integrating technology assets like emergency notification systems, access control, and video surveillance within the school safety ecosystem is essential. It limits the potential for misjudgment by automating critical portions of the emergency notification and response process.

When integrated properly, these solutions can provide holistic coverage of school campuses, leading to rapid response times. Simply put, leveraging technology helps to inform, connect, and engage multiple parts of the school safety ecosystem swiftly to better ensure safety for students, faculty, staff, and visitors.

Response time is the key factor that can make or break the positive resolution of an emergency situation. In the wake of the recent school shooting tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, we’re reminded that human error is possible and what results from it in dire circumstances can be catastrophic.

According to a timeline of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting provided by CNN, at 11:28 AM the shooter crashed his car near the school. U.S. Marshals noted that a 911 call was received at 11:30. By 11:31 the suspect had traversed the parking lot and began shooting at the school. Uvalde police arrived moments later at 11:35, but by 11:33 the shooter was already inside, firing multiple rounds into a classroom.

Within mere minutes, the devastation had already begun. Finally, at 12:50 PM, officers unlocked the door to the classroom where the shooter was and killed the gunman.

Even with a great deal of police presence, the shooter was able to enter the building and perpetrate horrendous acts of violence against unarmed, innocent victims during the very early minutes of arriving in the building.

Aside from the reminder that classroom and exterior doors should remain locked during the school day, lessons learned from this tragedy highlight that without an automated emergency notification system, petrified teachers and students could be the ones to make 911 calls instead of having such notifications automated, quickening response times and reducing potential human error.

As evidenced by this example and the many other unfortunate headlines we’ve already read about school shootings, the world has shifted considerably in the last few years. We continue to see gun violence and aggression on school campuses increase across the country for a myriad of reasons. As an organization, Eastern DataComm could not sit idly by while our nation continues to lose children, teachers, and school administrators to violent acts. Though we cannot stop someone from making the decision to cause harm, we can do our part to help make the future a safer one.

LENS + OPTICS: Rapid And Effective Emergency Notification For Your School Safety Ecosystem

To better safeguard our communities, Eastern DataComm has developed the lockdown and emergency notification system and continuous monitoring service, LENS + OPTICS. The system is designed to effectively communicate danger quickly to mitigate damage and loss of life.

Whether it’s an active shooter, lockdown, or another urgent event, thoughtful planning and an understanding of the school safety ecosystem combined with effective technology solutions help

school districts respond more effectively and foster safer school environments. And as we all can agree, a safe school environment empowers the learning and growth that educational institutions aim to achieve.

Learn more about LENS+OPTICS

Discover The Most Effective Ways To Support Your School Safety Ecosystem With Eastern DataComm

When it comes to school safety, we’re all in this together.

Our team of advisors and technicians is here to share our years of experience and insight on safety and communications technology solutions to help you better protect your school community when every second counts.

To learn more about how our team can help you design and implement an effective emergency notification system for your school district, book your complimentary School Safety Consultation by completing this contact form.

How Effective Emergency Notification Technology Responds To A Variety Of Emergencies

WSI Comandix on June 13, 2022

While we may hear about active shooter-related lockdowns most often, there are a variety of potential challenges for which a school can employ an emergency notification system.

In fact, according to The U.S. Department of Education’s Building Blocks to School Safety Report, schools should have an emergency operations plan in place that considers all threats and hazards including adversarial and human-caused threats as well as natural hazards like earthquakes and floods.

Further, the report indicates that the plan needs to be comprehensive in nature so that it can effectively provide for the safety of students, staff, and visitors in a range of potential circumstances.

Finally, the report indicates that emergency operations plans must consider all settings and times. It goes on to state that planning teams should consider what is required to provide students, staff, and visitors with timely notifications even in loud areas or spaces beyond the school building itself.

With this in mind, it’s important to consider the various potential threats that could impact a school and how emergency operations plans can be effectively supported by emergency notifications technology for swift and effective responses.

Emergency Notification For Trespassers, Unauthorized Personnel, And Intruders On Campus

Schools nationwide are struggling with how to respond to potential threats including intruders and are seeking grant funding as a way to enhance their emergency response processes. While a safety plan may help schools plan for the potential threat of an intruder, having a proper emergency notification system in place can help facilitate that response more effectively to reduce potential danger.

In addition, integrating the emergency notification system with other technology solutions like access control and video surveillance can facilitate faster responses by showing the location of a trespasser or the movement of unauthorized personnel, in real-time.

Bombs, Bomb Threats, And Explosions

The threat of a bombing can lead to potentially traumatic experiences for students and staff who are on campus when the threat occurs. For example, a recent bomb threat in Belmont, Massachusetts presented a real-life snapshot of a far too common experience. The school received a bomb threat while staff members were in the building. Thankfully, everyone was able to leave the building safely and no students were on campus at the time, but the school remained closed for days as the investigation got underway.

The use of emergency notification systems in bomb threat incidents ensures that when the threat is made, the response is immediate because swift responses help save lives. Integrating your emergency notification system with things like email and text alerts can also allow you to notify law enforcement and first responders at the push of a button.

Emergency Notification For Active Shooters On Campus

Even with a safety plan in place, schools can find themselves in active shooter situations that turn fatal. In fact, after a recent school shooting in Michigan, the experience prompted a deeper review of the school’s safety plan because it had not prevented the deaths of several people during an active shooter event.

Responding to an intruder or other perpetrator during an active shooter event requires immediate action to mitigate damage and loss of life. That’s why the best time to review your safety and security technology infrastructure, including your lockdown and emergency notification system, is before an incident occurs.

Emergency Notification For Severe Weather Incidents

Schools also contend with a variety of severe weather incidents that require immediate response and notification. These include extreme heat, winter weather, landslides, tornados, wildfires, flooding, and earthquakes.

For example, landslides in Oregon shut down the main road leading to school entrances and the unsafe local conditions required school closures as well. Neah-Kah-Nie School District responded by sending a notification alert closing the school so that students and staff were aware of the closure as quickly as possible, preventing them from trying to brave the treacherous conditions to get to school.

In addition, recent coastal wildfires in Orange County, California, led to both residential and school evacuations in Laguna Beach. Some schools held classes in safer, nearby schools requiring not only collaboration between schools, but also proper notification of staff, families, and students.

This is just one instance where utilizing an emergency notification system for wildfire response and evacuation could facilitate faster response times and wide-reaching notification of changes to typical school procedures.

Implementing emergency notification technology to respond to catastrophic weather events allows districts to take charge of the way they respond to conditions beyond their control and allows families, students, and staff to understand how the school district is taking action to keep everyone safe and secure.

The Challenge Schools Face When Responding To So Many Different Potential Threats

While schools typically have plans in place to respond to these events, most have not effectively integrated the different technology systems that help to notify the proper authorities and everyone on campus, both inside buildings and on the grounds, of the threat at hand.

Whether it’s a catastrophic weather event, an intruder, an active shooter, or another emergency situation, how quickly you respond can lessen the potential for disaster.

For this very reason, it is essential to have a comprehensive, automated emergency notification system.

Regardless of the type of emergency you face, your emergency notification system should accomplish the set of objectives we list below to better enable rapid response when every second counts. In this blog, we’re sharing our insights on these top priorities so that you know what your school district needs to do to ensure quick corrective action when encountering an emergency situation – helping to keep your students, teachers, staff, and visitors protected.

Emergency Notification Technology Should Remove Human Error

While school districts nationwide have created thoughtful plans for a variety of time-sensitive situations, when responding to a true emergency as it is occurring, things can become more challenging. Drills help with preparation, but when faced with catastrophe or imminent danger, it is difficult for anyone to think straight, let alone respond in a calm and collected manner.

Emergency notification systems remove the potential for human error and rely instead on automated processes to facilitate communication. These systems also ensure that students, faculty, staff, visitors, and the proper authorities are notified of the danger as quickly as possible.

Not only does this alleviate the burden on administrators and staff to act without error during what can be an incredibly nerve-wracking experience, but it also ensures a rapid response regardless of circumstances.

Emergency Notification Technology Should Cover The Entire Campus

While many emergency response plans address both the inside and outside of a campus or school building, it’s vital that your emergency response technology does the same. More often than not, during our School Safety Audits that we’ve conducted with schools nationwide, we unearth areas of vulnerabilities. In outdoor settings, those areas include athletic fields, parking lots, and other exterior locations of a campus. Within buildings, the same is often true of places like restrooms, stairways, and corridors.

Ensuring that notifications can be provided in all areas of the campus (from loud gymnasiums and cafeterias to far-reaching sports fields and parking lots) is essential to effectively act on an emergency response plan because it ensures that no matter where someone is on campus, they are aware of the situation at hand.

Emergency Notification Technology Should Allow For Rapid Response In An Emergency

It is crucial for the response to an emergency to begin less than twenty seconds from the time that the threat is identified. This means that your emergency notification technology needs to be fast-acting and efficient if it is to be effective in communicating that threat to local law enforcement and first responders so that it can be handled as quickly as possible.

Emergency Notification Technology Should Integrate Seamlessly With Other Technology Solutions

Integrating your emergency notification system with the phone system and paging system is essential to successfully delivering messages. In addition, having a system that integrates with your additional technology infrastructure, like your access control and video surveillance systems, can provide added benefits to your response time. From limiting or restricting access to areas of your buildings and grounds to identifying exactly where the threat is located using real-time surveillance footage, integrating your emergency notification system with these additional platforms only provides greater visibility into the emergency situation to lend to faster resolution. Ultimately, this integration can offer you more opportunities to ensure the safety of your campus.

Why LENS + OPTICS Is The Clear Choice For Your Emergency Notification System

Eastern DataComm offers cutting-edge emergency notification technology solutions to school districts nationwide. Our systems are customizable and easily integrate with technology solutions like VoIP phone systems, video surveillance systems, and access control systems so that every part of your technology infrastructure works in unison to help you communicate effectively in emergencies when every second matters.

Our LENS + OPTICS system streamlines communication so that, at the touch of a button, you can notify everyone of an emergency or active threat. In fact, a series of rapid, automated communications begin at the push of a button including pre-recorded PA announcements, activation of LED beacons and signboards, dissemination of emails and text messages, and prerecorded calls to the law enforcement. OPTICS continuously monitors and tests components that directly contribute to the proper functionality of LENS. OPTICS offers your school community added peace of mind knowing that there are always eyes on your lockdown and emergency notification system.

The entire system is scalable and customizable so that it fits the unique needs of your school campus. To learn more about LENS + OPTICS, click here.

Customize Your Emergency Notification System With Eastern DataComm

To learn more about how our team can help you design and implement an effective emergency notification system for your school district, book your Complimentary School Safety Consultation here.

Paging, Bells, and Clocks: Synchronized Solutions for Educational Facilities

WSI Comandix on May 3, 2022

In a school community, each day is driven by the clock and bell schedule. That schedule can shift each day with special schedules, early dismissals, and other events. That’s why at Eastern DataComm, we provide comprehensive solutions for educational facilities to enhance daily communications and keep the daily routines your school depends on in sync. Synchronizing your clocks and your bell schedule allows your school to effectively communicate the calendar of events for the day, while also ensuring that you can communicate with teachers, students, and 911 in an emergency.

Today, we’re sharing four common challenges schools and districts face when it comes to their paging, bells, and clocks systems, and how Eastern DataComm can help with school safety.

Challenge 1: Confusion Arises When Bells and Clocks Are Not Properly Synchronized

A change in the schedule on a particular day doesn’t need to leave your school community confused about when a bell might ring. But often, when bells and clocks are not synchronized or when adjustments occur, this problem becomes more common than it should be.

Synchronizing your bells and clocks is especially essential when your district or school campus includes multiple buildings and specialty areas like gyms and libraries.

A lack of campus-wide synchronization can also impact things like early dismissals for students with appointments as well as the timing of vital medications for students with health needs that require a visit to the nurse’s office at a specific time each day.

With all of these unique circumstances at play, Eastern DataComm is here to help you keep your school community moving through their days smoothly. The solutions we offer are designed to keep your clocks in sync and help you maintain accurate time and make adjustments with ease.

The solutions we offer our customers include:

Paging and Intercoms

The intercom and paging system is a significant factor in the daily communications of your school, so it’s important to ensure that the school is equipped with a system that guarantees smooth and clear communication for your faculty, staff, and students.

Bell Scheduling

Our team implements a bell controller that gives you complete and total control over the school day, improving the ease of use over the complicated traditional analog bell systems.

Clocks

Our wireless clocks operate as individual repeaters, ensuring that each clock is in sync with your clock controller. You can automatically adjust for daylight savings, removing the potential for any errors related to this shift as well.

Lockdown and Emergency Notification Systems

You can initiate and announce a lockdown sequence quickly and effectively with our lockdown and emergency notification system and continuous monitoring service, LENS + OPTICS. This solution is customizable and can integrate with some of your existing technology.

Customized Alerts

Keep communication flowing with customized alerts to teachers, students, and the proper authorities. Our notification system provides for this streamlined relay of information so that whether you are making a one-time change to the schedule or reaching the authorities regarding an active threat, you can do so swiftly and effectively.

Challenge 2: It’s Hard to Hear Clearly on Aging Intercom and Paging Systems

Out-of-date or aging communication technology solutions can create a flurry of muffled voices and background noises. These issues can make announcements and pages difficult to understand and are simply unacceptable, especially in urgent or emergency situations. You don’t have to settle for inconsistent performance when what you really need is crystal-clear paging and intercom exchanges.

From the typical, “Mrs. Jones to Room 122…” to the more critical emergency messages related to fire drills, evacuations, and active shooter events or lockdowns, you deserve to know your systems are working consistently and efficiently for maximum school safety.

That’s why at Eastern DataComm, our paging and intercom systems provide clear audio for effortless communication.

Outdated Systems Cost More and Take More Effort to Repair

If your current system requires manual adjustment for things like special schedules, assemblies, or daylight savings, you and your staff are wasting valuable time. And, if your current bell system is not up to date with the latest technology, repairs may grow even more difficult and costly as time goes on.

Whether it’s finding replacement parts that are no longer commonly used or contacting an electrician who can effectively address the issue, the effort needed to keep up with an out-of-date system can really add up extra costs quickly.

At Eastern DataComm, we take the hassle out of your communications solutions by providing you with the most up-to-date systems on the market today. By working with our team, you’ll have everything you need to keep your school day running smoothly.

Challenge 3: Aging Bells, Clocks, Intercom, and Paging Systems Can Negatively Impact School Safety and Security

In situations where every moment is pivotal, you shouldn’t have to depend on aging systems that might not deliver messages with clarity, sync with your other systems, or properly guide your students, staff, and visitors.

From severe weather evacuations to lockdowns to intruder alerts, and even urgent parent pick-ups, schools experience many situations that require quick reactions and efficient communication. As the most pressing concern, aging systems can lead to lagging response times or no response at all.

Even routine drills can become more challenging if your bells, clocks, and paging systems are too out of sync or out-of-date to properly communicate messages.

Eastern DataComm specializes in integrating our clients’ paging, bells, and clocks with emergency notifications systems, our LENS + OPTICS, as well as additional technology systems that improve safety throughout your school community like video surveillance and access control systems.

This comprehensive approach to school safety ensures that your school campus or district-wide technology is working to protect your students, faculty, staff, and visitors at all times.

Right-Fit Technology Essentials: What You Need from Your Paging, Bells, and Clocks

When it comes to your paging, bells, and clocks, we know that no solution is one-size-fits-all. When you collaborate with Eastern DataComm, we take the time to connect with you on your current needs, diagnose your potential issues, and move through a cooperative consultation process that customizes your solutions to your unique challenges as well as your safety and communications vulnerabilities.

To schedule your complimentary School Safety Consultation, click here.

Is Your School District’s Phone System Compliant With New FCC Regulations?

WSI Comandix on April 6, 2022

In light of two recent federal laws strengthening the effectiveness of emergency calls, many schools are taking a more critical look at their multiline telephone systems. Today, we’re sharing some of the key aspects of these two laws and an opportunity to better understand their impact while implementing changes that help ensure the safety and security of your school community.

Kari’s Law

If your school district’s multi-line phone system still requires you to dial 9, or any other number, before reaching an outside line, you’ll want to learn more about Kari’s Law.

This Federal Communications Commission regulation implements a set of changes that impact multiline telephone communications like those often found in schools and districts nationwide. The FCC regulation now requires such systems to allow users to dial 911 without entering a prefix. In addition, Kari’s Law requires that notification to another resource (for many districts this would be a security office) is received when a 911 call is made.

While this law is designed to ensure easier and more comprehensive emergency communication, many older or less integrated phone systems will need to be enhanced or upgraded to allow for these changes.

Ray Baum’s Act

In addition to Kari’s law, another recent FCC regulation is impacting multiline telephone systems. This regulation is called Ray Baum’s Act and it too has implications for school district-wide telecommunications. Specifically, Ray Baum’s Act requires all multi-line phone systems to send a dispatchable location along with a “call back” number each time a 911 call is made. This helps to ensure that police and other emergency responders understand where to route resources during an urgent situation and how best to respond.

In school districts that use multi-line phone systems (as most do), Ray Baum’s Act has been and continues to be quite impactful as such pre-existing systems will need to be enhanced to accommodate these requirements.

Learn More On Our On-Demand Campus Safety Webcast Series Complimentary Educational Webinar

So, what do each of these FCC regulations really mean for school communities with multiline phone systems?

How can district and school leaders make changes that align with the recent regulations and continue to ensure the safety and security of their school communities?

If you have questions like these, Eastern DataComm invites you to participate in our online on-demand webinar, a part of the Campus Safety Webcast Series, that is focused on enhancing school safety technology while complying with recent FCC regulations regarding emergency phone communication requirements. Campus Safety shares important educational resources with campus police chiefs, security directors, IT personnel, emergency managers, facilities directors, risk management professionals and executive administrators involved in the public safety and security of hospitals, schools, and universities in the United States.

Additionally, we’ve partnered with Mitel, an industry leader in telecommunications, to offer you a thorough and informative presentation.

During the webinar, we’ll review the recent FCC regulations with vital details regarding how multi-line phone systems (like those typically used within a school district) must function in an emergency and how to safeguard your school community by leveraging technology in emergencies like lockdowns or active shooter events.

Register To View Our Latest Connected And Protected Webinar

To register and participate in this complimentary educational opportunity, visit this link.

If you have more questions particular to your school district’s telephone system needs, write to us at [email protected] to schedule your complimentary Phone System Consultation.

Our team of advisors is here to do a deep-dive with you, examining the current technology you have in place and gaining a full understanding of your considerations – be they budget, timeline, strategy, or otherwise. Based on the unique safety and communication solutions needs of your school district, we’ll share with you best practices and recommendations on how to seamlessly keep your school community connected and protected. We view school safety holistically. As the phone system is a critical component of keeping your faculty, students, and staff safe, we also explore with you emergency notification, video surveillance, and access control technologies that can further augment the work you do to ensure the safety of your school community. Consider us your collaborative resource to aid in the betterment of how you safeguard your campus.

Because when it comes to school safety, we’re all in this together.

Case Study: Park Ridge (NJ) School District

WSI Comandix on March 3, 2022

District Implements Leading-Edge Communication And Emergency Notification Systems With Help From Eastern DataComm.

The Park Ridge School District comprises three schools with more than 1,200 students from pre-kindergarten through grade 12.

Events like Superstorm Sandy and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting were shocking demonstrations of the need for reliable emergency notification and communications systems.

After months of research and investigation, the New Jersey School Board Association’s (NJSBA) School Security Task Force made several recommendations, including the development of redundant communications and multifunction notification systems that integrate with local police and emergency responders.

The Park Ridge School District then worked steadfastly to implement and enhance their phone system as well as their communication and emergency notification technologies, relying on the expertise of the Eastern DataComm team to strategize and execute against this goal.

“We first started working with Eastern DataComm to update our phone system more than 15 years ago, and we’ve been working with them on upgrades ever since,” said Bob Wright, Business Administrator for the Park Ridge Board of Education. “They are very reliable, and they can do a lot of different things for us. It’s very handy to have someone like that as a vendor.”

Improving Communications

District officials first contacted Eastern DataComm to discuss replacing an on-premises PBX phone system that was no longer meeting their needs. The aging analog system did not support basic features such as voicemail, and phones could only be placed in common areas such as the main office and the teacher’s lounge. Infrastructure issues made it cost-prohibitive to wire buildings for classroom phones.

Eastern DataComm recommended a Mitel Voice-over-IP (VoIP) system that delivers far more flexible communications. Fiber trunk cabling can support multiple users and devices, making it possible to put phones in every classroom without running individual cables for each phone.

Integrated Systems

The fact that the phone system operates over an IP network has allowed the district to integrate paging and school intercom system applications that improve emergency notification capabilities in all three of their school buildings. All phones have a built-in interface that allows teachers, administrators, and staffers to use a telephone handset to page someone or make building-wide announcements.

“It has been a very good system,” said Wright. “We’ve had very few interruptions in service over the years, and the system is very easy to understand and use. Sometimes with Voice-over-IP, there can be issues with latency where you’ll actually hear yourself speaking through the line, but they’ve done a very good job of eliminating that. It sounds just like you’re talking through a wired phone line.”

An Advanced Emergency Notification System: LENS

School officials were excited to learn that more advanced security features could operate on top of the newly upgraded phone system including an advanced school safety system.

“Using the phone system that we already had, we could install this system that could provide real-time information to police and other designated contacts in the district. We went through a couple of presentations and found that we really liked this product.”

The product that impressed Park Ridge School District officials most was Eastern DataComm’s Lockdown Emergency Notification System (LENS). The system uses a proprietary controller to link the Mitel phone system with other features across the IP network including:

School intercom systems
Alarms
Strobe lights
LED signboards

LENS allows teachers, staff, or administrators to quickly begin lockdown, evacuation, active shooter alerts, or shelter-in-place procedures. The LENS Solution can be initiated from any school phone or any of the activation buttons installed in common areas.

Once activated, the system initiates screen-pop alerts on phones throughout all school buildings and the Board of Education office, along with intercom audio messages, strobe lights, and LED sign board messages. A wireless radio component ensures that the notification reaches all outdoor spaces, including parking lots and sports fields.

An emergency notification also triggers automatic calls to 911, police, and fire departments.

Time is of the essence in an emergency, and LENS allows teachers, staff, or administrators to quickly initiate lockdown, evacuation, or shelter-in-place procedures. LENS can be activated from any school phone or from any of the several “stopper” buttons installed in common areas.

LENS brings all of these processes together to provide a comprehensive, seamless approach to emergency notification that is as rapid and effective as possible.

“People can now initiate a lockdown regardless of where they are in the building, whereas before you would have had to go to a designated area,” said Wright. “When we run drills, I get both a text message and a phone call — and it happens in the instant that something is triggered. We’ve been using it now for several months and it’s been working great.”

A Diagnostic And Consultative Partner For Your Safety And Communications Technology Needs

Wright has come to expect great solutions from Eastern DataComm.

“It’s been a very good relationship… The products are very good and their service is great. If you do have an issue, they will respond to you same day — which is almost unheard of, especially in the telecommunications industry.”

And what truly sets Eastern DataComm apart from others in our field is that we become your school physical security consulting partner utilizing our comprehensive diagnostic, collaborative, and consultative approach to safety and communications solutions.

Connect With Eastern DataComm

Eastern DataComm has the expertise to help keep your community connected and protected.

Schedule your complimentary School Safety Consultation with our Safety & Communications Advisors today by calling 888-902-4091 or emailing us at [email protected].