Amarillo Independent School District

A large district encompassing about 70 square miles in the Texas Panhandle, Amarillo Independent School District (AISD) serves 30,000 students with 4,000 employees across 50 locations. The district has long been committed to putting students first, a commitment that federal education standards only reinforce. As a result, the district is continually in pursuit of better communication between teachers and parents.

“As a school district, we don’t have a dedicated phone staff.”
— Jeff Roller, Internet Systems Analyst, AISD.

In 2004, the district began exploring options for upgrading its phone system, with phones for every teacher as the ultimate goal. AISD’s existing, outdated key phone system led to staff and cost inefficiencies. IT staff had to physically make moves, adds, and changes by traveling around the wide district. Providing a phone or voicemail to every teacher would have been prohibitively expensive, as the phone company could not provide enough copper wiring to expand the existing system to every teacher. As a result, less than 100 staff members had voicemail.

“The ShoreTel system was very intuitive, easy to set up, and easy to manage. A person can use the Web interface to make moves, adds, and changes right from their desk. It’s amazing how easy it is compared to other systems.”
— Jeff Roller, Internet Systems Analyst, AISD.

AISD opted for a phased implementation, working with Austin-based channel partner Trillion to roll out the system across the district. Trillion configured unique call flow routing using ShoreTel work group features to route calls in various departments. Additionally, the partner acquired a common phone prefix for all district numbers to simplify dialing for staff and outside callers. Now, approximately 532 staff use the ShoreTel system, including all administrative personnel and teachers at the four high schools. Other benefits include:

• Unified messaging allows teachers and parents to communicate more easily. Staff and teachers can access their voicemail messages from any phone or receive the messages in their email inboxes.
• ShoreTel Director streamlines management tasks into a single browser-based interface. Moves, adds, and changes can be done remotely and in minutes, saving both time and money.
• The district saves more than $20,000 a year, and now has a flexible, scalable platform for expansion. Additional savings come from the system’s ability to work with the district's existing analog phones. 
• An auto-attendant directs calls to the right individual based on the need, whether related to contracts, employment, benefits, or substitute teachers.

“We view the ShoreTel system as one leg of that stool, giving us a way to be more effective in allowing teachers and parents to communicate and improve student performance.”
—Jeff Roller, Internet Systems Analyst, AISD.