iQ MAGAZINE

Although rural Charles County, Maryland, boasts of its historic villages and bucolic bicycle trails, it’s still only an hour south of Washington, D.C., and thus keenly aware that the real world can sometimes intrude on serenity.

Bijaya Devkota, CIO for the Charles County Public Schools, led the implementation of an Internet Protocol (IP) Communications network that connects the district’s 33 schools, serving approximately 26,000 kids. While Devkota reports the converged voice and data network has saved the school district “thousands of dollars per month” on infrastructure costs, one of the big benefits has been the deployment of a phone-based application that helps with attendance and parental notification.

The school district uses an application from LiteScape Technologies called KIDS (Knowledge Information Delivery System), which runs on some 3,600 Cisco IP phones throughout the district facilities. One of the features allows teachers to take attendance. If a child is absent, the teacher can automatically access contact information for parents from a central database and call to find out whether the child is ill or simply late.

The information is also useful if a child becomes sick during the day. “We’ve set it up to show the parents’ home phone, work phone, or home address,” says Devkota. “That way, the teacher can contact the parents quickly.” The same profile reveals whether the child has allergies or another medical condition that requires special treatment.

The school district currently uses KIDS to broadcast messages over the telephone displays during the day. Using the profiles built into the application, staff in the front office can page any subset of a school’s population, such as all science teachers, all classrooms in a particular wing, or all phones on campus.

“We have had several tornados,” says Devkota, “and we can pass on those warnings quickly now.” Using the IP phones as broadcast tools eliminates the need to maintain a separate public-address and alarm-bell system. In addition, Devkota is considering a new feature from LiteScape that integrates the application with Microsoft Outlook, allowing users to transmit e-mail to the IP phones.

Schools can set up KIDS to deliver other information, including staff-directory information, event calendars, and time-card tracking.

But security is foremost on Devkota’s mind, not only for students but for staff as well. “Someone could be working late at night and have to call 911,” he says. Because of the way the telephones are set up to interact with the Verizon phone system, a 911 call automatically sends a detailed campus map with the caller’s location to police headquarters. “The police would automatically know where on the school grounds someone was.”

Because even in rural Maryland, citizens want to know that their kids—and teachers—are safe.

Back to Top

iQ Magazine, Third Quarter 2005