Dougherty County School System

Like most K-12 school districts nationwide, Dougherty County School System in Albany, GA, has struggled with state and federal budget cuts. Though the district has added students and teachers, it has been forced to do so with the same or reduced budgetary funds each year. Despite the budget crunch, Dougherty is committed to keeping school facilities modern and outfitted with the technologies its 18,000 students and 1,900 faculty and staff need.

“Beyond potential cost savings — estimated at upwards of $12,000 a month — the many features of ShoreTel technology would significantly benefit district communications.”
— Bill Freeman, Technical Services Supervisor, Dougherty County School System.

As part of its focus on outstanding business practices, in 2002 the district looked to its phone system to improve communications and cut costs. At the time, the district had a relatively new PBX system in place. However, the Centrex system relied on traditional phone lines that cost the district about $20 per line. With more than 600 lines, and long distance and 411 directory costs, the district spent $12,000-$15,000 every month on its phone bill. Dougherty saw IP telephony as the key to breaking free from these steep line costs. Stormwood, an Atlanta-based ShoreTel channel partner, proposed the ShoreTel solution to Dougherty County Schools.

“When we saw the ShoreTel system, there was really no reason to look anywhere else.”
— Bill Freeman, Technical Services Supervisor, Dougherty County School System.

With Stormwood’s help, Dougherty implemented the system in all 39 of its locations over the course of a few months. The ShoreTel infrastructure includes the ShoreTel 60, 120, and T1 Voice Switches, with six primary rate interfaces connected to the T1 switches. With an embedded, real-time operating system, each switch ensures dial tone with exceptional reliability. Additionally, the district has two voicemail servers, with one acting as a backup. Before, office staff had to handwrite messages for teachers. Now calls go straight to the appropriate phones or voicemail boxes. Other benefits include:

• Cutting of phone line costs and additional expenses like 411 saves at least $150,000 a year.
• Unified messaging lets users receive voicemails in their email inboxes, directly dial contacts from Microsoft^® Outlook^® , and schedule calls on their calendars.
• ShoreTel advanced features allow staff, faculty, and parents to connect more quickly and directly freeing office staff to perform tasks more critical tasks.
• ShoreTel Director enables IT staff to save nearly an hour for every move, add, and change, amounting to about 800 hours of time savings at the busy start of each school year.
• The system integrates with analog phones, so cost will be no barrier to the school system’s future plans to add a phone in every classroom.

“With the cost savings and all the features we got, ShoreTel has been by far the best technical addition I’ve seen.”
— Bill Freeman, Technical Services Supervisor, Dougherty County School System.