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firewall security and generally outdated IT infrastructure.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.
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