Boardwalk Communications - School District #67 Case Study

CASE STUDY: School District #67– IP Communication and Infrastructure Project

ABOUT SCHOOL DISTRICT # 67
School District #67 is located in the Okanagan/Skaha region of British Columbia and comprises 21 K- 12 schools with approximately 800 employees. The public continues to set high expectations for public education while financial constraints are forcing school districts to do more with less. School District #67 is no exception. This reality was compelling enough to force the district to reexamine its technical infrastructure.

BACKGROUND & BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS
The school district was under increasing pressure to deliver a broader range of connectivity services to staff and students throughout the region including the delivery of distance learning initiatives.

They were relying on an aging PBX, analog telephony, compromised firewall security and generally outdated IT infrastructure. The District’s Manager of Information Technology recognized the need and value of an overall systems upgrade and contacted Boardwalk Communications to craft an effective solution.

BOARDWALK DELIVERS RESULTS
Boardwalk was engaged very early in the process lending its support to the Manager of IT who needed to sell his vision for a systems upgrade to the Okanagan/Skaha Board of Trustees. In order to present Boardwalk’s recommended solution in the best light, Boardwalk employed a number of Cisco resources:

Firstly, Cisco’s demonstration equipment helped the Board conceptualize the solution and ultimately, support it;
Secondly, Boardwalk leveraged Cisco’s formidable marketing programs that target the public sector specifically, to help win the support of the school administrations and the public (student body, parents etc.)

Once the District was on board, convinced the Boardwalk solution would deliver maximum results on a limited budget, the real work began.

Boardwalk upgraded the districts entire switch infrastructure, implementing QoS-aware switches, resulting in higher, more reliable connectivity. Access to information became more consistent and reliable resulting in immediate gains to student productivity;
Boardwalk implemented IP telephony to replace an aging analog system with rising individual circuit costs; and
Boardwalk implemented IP Telephone Call Manager which, amongst other benefits, delivered voicemail, district-wide to all employees.

Throughout the duration of the project, Boardwalk’s systems engineers consistently impressed the client with their strong technical skills and expertise. Most importantly, though, the School District was genuinely impressed with the results, specifically, the cost savings:

This highly successful implementation has non only provided School District employees with additional services in the classroom but has also saved the School District as much as $60,000.
~ Assistant Secretary Treasurer, School District #67, Skaha-Okanagan

School District #67 is now strategically positioned to meet the growing technical demands of the education sector and to assume a leadership role in the distance learning arena for the K-12 audience.

Updates

Success Stories

A very successful implementation at School District 67 in Penticton is already providing huge Return on Investment for this customer.

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