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

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.

Honored With Mitel’s Education Partner Of The Year Award

Eastern DataComm is proud to announce that we’ve been named Mitel’s Education Partner of the Year!

Mitel, a global leader in business communications with users in over 100 countries, helps businesses and service providers connect and provide innovative services to their customers. Each year, Mitel recognizes the organizations that are leading the way with their Global Partner Awards.

These awards are given to companies with exceptional understanding of customer needs and unparalleled ability to provide innovative and customized solutions. These are two of the cornerstones of our work at Eastern DataComm. As such, we are truly honored to be recognized on a national level with this prestigious award for the work that we do for our customers in education.

We take a diagnostic and consultative approach to school safety that allows our clients to receive customized safety and communications solutions tailored to their unique school and district needs. We recognize that when it comes to school safety, every second counts. Using technology systems and platforms that allow for swift, effective communication saves lives. Mitel has been and continues to be our trusted partner in this endeavour to help improve safety for schools throughout the nation. 

This year and every year, Eastern DataComm is committed to providing effective technology and communication solutions that keep schools as safe as possible. In addition to unparalleled on-premises phone solutions like Mitel phone systems, our team diligently examines the ever-evolving safety and communication needs of our customers in education. Not only do we partner with best-in-class industry giants, but we also develop innovations for the needs we see presented by our customers. LENS+OPTICS, our lockdown and emergency notification system, plus continuous monitoring service, is a primary example of the technology we outfit schools with to better safeguard their campuses.

We will continue to carry out our mission of developing and spreading technology that keeps our communities connected and protected – a commitment shared by Mitel. We are excited to continue our partnership with this cutting-edge, industry-leading company and look forward to making schools across the nation safer. 

To learn more about ways the right-fit phone system can better protect your campus or to schedule your complimentary School Safety Consultation, contact us here.

What To Look For When Selecting Your Access Control System

Does your current access control system need an upgrade? Are you thinking about bringing this technology to your school district, business, or municipality?

Here are three key areas to evaluate whether you’re considering installing or upgrading your access control system.

Do You Need A Way To Improve Daily Operations Or Automate Intruder Prevention?

Do any of these situations sound familiar?

  • Your staff is checking IDs by hand each morning
  • You’re still using locked file cabinets to protect sensitive information from unwanted eyes
  • You’re manually controlling who enters the building and when they do so

If any of these apply to your school district, business, or municipality, chances are that you want an even safer, more efficient, and more effective mode of knowing (and controlling) who’s allowed into buildings and on your grounds. Automating your school’s safety through access control technology not only improves the daily flow of people into and out of your building, but it also reduces the likelihood of human error by taking staff out of the manual operations that technology can do more efficiently. And that means a safer district for students, faculty, staff, and visitors.

When you’re considering whether to install or upgrade your access control system, it’s important to evaluate your day-to-day operations that could benefit from such changes and the added level of safety and security those changes would bring.

Some potential safety features that can be provided by an access control system include:

Swipe Card And Card Reader Technologies

Swipe card readers prevent unauthorized entrance by adding a layer of security to entryways. Eastern DataComm specializes in installing new swipe card systems and providing customers with existing systems the upgrades they need to ensure the highest level of access control and physical security possible.

Request To Exit Systems (REX)

Eastern DataComm offers both motion detection that releases the door when it senses motion and an exit button that releases the door when pressed. When using magnetic locks in your access control system, a request to exit button is required in case of emergencies. In emergency situations, it will disable the magnet’s locking power and allow for exit through that door.

Door Position Indicators And Magnetic Locks

Door position indicators and magnetic locks allow for controlled access and notification of potential security risks by using a system of doors, magnets, locks, and indicators to show if a door is open or closed, which could indicate the presence of an intruder.

Does Your Access Control System Integrate With An Emergency Response Notification System?

Another key consideration is how adding or enhancing an access control system can keep your district safe in the event of a fire, intruder, lockdown, or other urgent situation.

In cases like these, you’ll want to ensure your building’s fire escape plan and emergency lockdown procedures are not in opposition to one another.

And restricting access to certain areas in the event of an emergency or lockdown situation becomes faster, easier, and more effective when you have an access control system with technology that integrates with your emergency notification system.

At Eastern DataComm, our Lockdown and Emergency Notification System – LENS + OPTICS – integrates seamlessly with the access control systems we install and maintain for customers.

LENS (Lockdown Emergency Notification System) is a comprehensive notification platform that integrates with a school’s phone and paging/intercom systems. Once activated, communication is rapid and automated, including pre-recorded announcements over the PA system, activation of LED beacons and signboards, calls to cell phones and desk phones, PC pop-ups, emails, text messages, and pre-recorded calls to police.

To cover remote areas outside of the building, Eastern DataComm takes measures like installing wireless-enabled speakers and LED beacons to ensure complete coverage over the entire school grounds. Additionally, video surveillance can also be incorporated with LENS, which can quickly help law enforcement and first responders pinpoint the location of the identified threat.

LENS+OPTICS, coupled with access control, allows for restricting access to certain parts of buildings and grounds during emergency situations. Integration with other aspects of access control including Request To Exit Systems, Swipe Card Systems, and Door Position Indicators provide added information regarding a potential intruder and increase safety measures in the event of a lockdown.

To ensure that your LENS solution is running optimally, OPTICS, our continuous monitoring services, keeps eyes on your lockdown and emergency notification system so you don’t lose focus on your school’s safety.

This means our team at Eastern DataComm can create a comprehensive emergency notification system combined with access control, leading to further physical on-premises safety and security.

Do You Know What To Look For In Your Access Control Partner?

Finally, in addition to considering how access control can make your daily operations more streamlined, you’ll want to be sure that you have the right team on your side for planning, installing, and maintaining the system. When you work with our Safety and Communications Advisors and Technicians at Eastern DataComm, you can rest assured that you have the right technology and support resources in place to safeguard your school, business, or municipality community in the event of an emergency or lockdown Eastern DataComm has served hundreds of schools, businesses, and municipalities with customized technology solutions tailored to their unique needs and priorities. We not only offer seamless installation and unparalleled maintenance support, but we’re also happy to provide our customers with actionable insights stemming from our collective expertise in emergency notification, creating solutions that ensure ongoing safety and security.

Connect With Eastern DataComm

To learn more about how our team can support you as you install or upgrade your access control and emergency response technology, contact us at [email protected] for a complimentary consultation.

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