By Beth Christian Broschart
The Parsons Advocate
PARSONS – Jeff Kramer and Aaron Long from Frontier Communications talked about a possible phone system upgrade for Tucker County Schools during their regular meeting last Tuesday. Director of Finance Dave Lambert said the phone system is older and said during the summer, there was an apparent lightning at Davis Thomas Elementary School that took the phones out completely there for several days at the end of the school year.
“That created an issue with people not being able to call and talk to who they needed to talk to,” Lambert said. “Some guys came and took a look at the system and confirmed what we already knew. “
Lambert said the system that is in place was designed for the world 20 years ago. He said the speakers had some ideas of how to upgrade the system and bring them up to the modern era.
“Voice mail would be assessable at all the schools,” Long said. “Right now there are different phone systems at all the schools. With what we are proposing, everything is networked together so you can actually dial by extensions between the BOE office and the schools. If someone calls in, you can also transfer them straight to a school without having to dial another number.”
The new phone system would also have ‘twinning,’ which means if someone calls a person in their office, their office phone and cell phone would ring simultaneously. Calls that go to voice mail will also send a message to the person’s email.
Another great feature of this new system is a great cost savings.
“Right now you guys are paying $1,900 to $2,000 for the phone lines. With the new system, you will be able to go to a PRI. That would cut the service down to about $700 to $800,” Long said. “All of the phone numbers could remain the same.”
Kramer said the new phone system could be upgradeable as technology increases.
Jonathan Hicks said for safety purposes, the goal is to get the phones in every classroom.
“Our goal is to have direct communication to every classroom, especially during safety situations,” Hicks said. “They can intercom out that everything is good and we can contact each room. Right now, the functionality of our intercom system at all schools is very old. The intercom and phones are parallel and not intertwined. Hopefully, this would allow us not to pay for each system separately.”
Lambert said initially, this would not put a phone in every classroom. The funding would allow for two payments to pay for the phones outright. In July 2018 there would be funding to have a phone in each classroom, where today, the system is 30 to 40 phones of having each classroom equipped with a phone.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Tucker BOE President Tim Turner declared September as Attendance Awareness Month for Tucker County Schools.
The next regular meeting of the Tucker BOE is set for 4:30 p.m. Sept. 19 at the Tucker County BOE Office.
