School intercom systems help ensure the safety of both students and staff by protecting entry points, permitting remote visitor entry, providing live video monitoring, and notifying emergency officials when needed. They are highly customizable; thus reducing maintenance costs while making daily operations simpler for administrators.
An effective school intercom system enables teachers to quickly alert office personnel of classroom emergencies without leaving their room, as well as facilitate room-to-room communication. Read below to learn about the several largest benefits your school could gain from these popular communication systems.
Two-Way Voice Communication
School intercom systems’ two-way voice communication feature is an important component in everyday routine and emergency situations, providing teachers and students with safe means of communicating directly with one another as well as with office personnel.
When faced with an emergency situation in their classroom such as an angry non-custodial parent looking for their student or a suspicious individual entering, teachers can call the main office immediately to inform them and receive instructions. When considering intercom systems for schools, keep this in mind. Once alerted to the issue, office staff can access it using audio/video to make sure that appropriate actions are being taken to keep all members of their campus safe.
School intercom systems can integrate seamlessly with PA speakers and message boards for announcements, paging, or important announcements that need to be relayed throughout their respective school communities. This integration creates a unified learning environment that promotes a shared vision.
While each feature can provide schools with significant benefits on its own, combining them to form an all-inclusive solution tailored specifically for a school can be even more useful. That is why it’s crucial that you work with an experienced team who understand the complexities involved with integrating school life safety and security systems.
An updated school intercom system is an investment in your campus’s safety and security, offering innovative features designed to boost communication, security, and operations. An intercom system provides the ideal way for schools to enhance security, communication, operations management and operations at once.
Paging
Paging systems can also be used to distribute emergency messages such as fire drills (which you can learn more about by clicking here) and lockdown alerts, as well as daily announcements such as schedules, bell times and the playing of the national anthem. To be effective in emergency situations, these systems require high quality sound to ensure clear comprehension and effective delivery – any muffled words or amplified background noise could disrupt or distort what should have been an integral message that students and staff rely on for survival.
Some K12 paging systems are analog, using dedicated cabling between all of the talk back speakers in each room or zone, typically requiring costly home run wiring by an electrician and ongoing maintenance costs to keep functioning correctly. Other IP based paging systems offer simple browser-based software for making changes to zones, bell schedules, volume levels and more with just a click or two of a mouse button.
A great paging system comprises a desktop base station connected to wall-mounted wireless intercom stations. Calls between the central station and each individual intercom station are routed securely over wireless technology for two-way voice communication at every location. Wireless PA speakers like these – https://www.pinterest.com/avnow/portable-pa-speakers/, LED message boards and synchronized clocks may further enhance this system and give it visual representations of current time and messaging overhead.
An IP-based K12 intercom system provides real-time voice and video communications between all areas of a school campus or district, including real-time paging capabilities and intercom integration – keeping students, faculty members and visitors safe, informed and connected. It includes full paging capabilities with full intercom integration as well as other features to keep everyone informed, safe and connected.
Emergency Notification
In school emergency situations, communication is of utmost importance. Traditional intercom and PA systems serve as workhorses on campus, found in thousands of classrooms nationwide and used daily by teachers and staff members to deliver day-to-day messaging. Although such analog solutions should certainly be part of your emergency communication plan, network-based intercom system solutions that offer mass messaging can also prove essential.
When selecting an intercom system for your school, look for one which enables two-way communication between classrooms and the front office, so teachers can relay urgent messages or seek assistance without leaving their classrooms. Classroom call buttons so teachers can quickly call the front office from any classroom with just the press of a button are becoming increasingly popular as it ensures efficient communications among teachers, front office, security services, ensuring the safety of your students.
Before selecting an intercom and PA system from any vendor, be sure to evaluate their training and technical support capabilities. A knowledgeable support team will enable your staff to maximize the full potential of their new system while quickly troubleshooting any minor issues that arise.
Room to Room Communication
Intercoms allow staff members to quickly communicate with one another and quickly locate the appropriate person in an emergency situation. A teacher or staff member who needs assistance can use an intercom system to page someone directly without disrupting the classroom environment; then that second staff member can quickly respond and resolve it quickly.
School intercoms can also be utilized to easily page students from one classroom to the next or between different rooms in a building, which can prove invaluable when they must leave for medical appointments or need help from fellow classmates with their work. This feature can also be utilized as an emergency alert system should someone need assistance from another colleague during class time.
School intercoms also serve multiple other key purposes in each room, including broadcasting announcements and emergency alerts from central locations to keep all staff up-to-date on any news or important announcements they need to share with everyone in an instant.
An expert can assist in choosing and installing the appropriate system for your unique situation, while integrating your existing systems into one unified school communications solution. They also have expertise to upgrade legacy systems to take advantage of modern features and technology; including hybrid school intercoms that can allow gradual transformation to full IP while still supporting analog infrastructure.