In your district, do teachers and administrators have dedicated phone numbers? With the increasing reliance on personal smartphones for professional use, schools face challenges related to privacy, security, and efficient management of communication. Farmington Public Schools uses MultiLine by Movius to add a district-owned, dedicated, secure business line to any smartphone. This blog discusses the power of dedicated phone numbers that can be centrally managed and provisioned to enable safe, cost-effective texting for school districts.
NO SOLUTION MEANS PERSONAL PHONES FOR PROFESSIONAL USE
The use of personal phones for professional purposes can lead to a myriad of challenges, from privacy concerns to potential legal exposure. There is no profession for which this concern is more relevant than education. Without providing professional phones, a school district has implicitly relegated teachers to coordinate all initiatives among each other on their personal phones.
Your mind might go to the uncomfortable scenario of a teacher texting a student. Of course, that’s not necessarily the only, or even the primary, concern. For example, teachers often must direct traffic during drop-off and pickup so that traffic jams can be reasonably avoided in the parking lot. They often publish schedules of whose day it is to direct traffic. If someone calls in sick, the Vice Principal would probably text another teacher to go direct traffic on their personal devices. While there is nothing wrong with that, what happens if two parents get into a car accident on the premises and they decide to take action against the district for a poorly designed parking lot? Now, the Vice Principal and the teacher who was directing traffic might have to hand over their personal phones to provide a record of communication that occurred that day. This is unfair to them.
There are also legitimate situations in which a teacher would text a student: such as a college professor coordinating study hours with her Teaching Assistants. They might initially publish the schedule by email, but they’re also going to exchange phone numbers for quick turnaround or advanced coordination. If texting for school districts is not explicitly, intentionally addressed with a policy that provisions the proper channel of communication, then teachers, professors, and administrators will inevitably find themselves in situations in which they need to use their personal phones for professional purposes.
To address these issues, enabling teachers and administrators to communicate on dedicated work numbers is a game-changer. This is especially true if you can do it without having to buy everyone a second cell phone, which might literally bankrupt the school district.
SAAS SOLUTION FOR DEDICATED PHONE NUMBERS
With a software-based, Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) solution, the school district could add dedicated, district-owned phone numbers to employees’ personal devices through an app.
- Cost Efficiency and IT Savings: By implementing dedicated work numbers with a SaaS model, schools can significantly cut IT costs associated with providing and maintaining hardware. The school would not have to buy a single phone in order to provision phone numbers for employees, administrators, and teachers, reducing overhead and freeing up resources for other critical educational needs. For example, SIM-based phone lines normally cost $85/ line/ month, assuming that the device is offered for free in exchange for a 12-month contract. If you have 200 employees, that means a spend of $204,000 per year, which doesn’t include the cost of replacement for damaged or lost hardware. With MultiLine, the spend would be less than one-third of that–with no risk of lost or damaged hardware. Texting for school districts has never been more affordable than with the SaaS-based model.
- Legal Compliance and Record-Keeping: The provision of district-owned, dedicated work lines reduces the legal exposure of the school district. Keeping records of communication becomes seamless, as all messages and calls are logged on the district’s server. This not only enhances transparency but also ensures compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. The best part is that MultiLine app is designed to respect personal privacy and cannot see anything that occurs outside of it. This way: teachers feel safe because their personal privacy is protected, parents feel safe because all work-related communication if available, the district managers feel safe because they have provisioned a communication system that sets everyone up for success.
- Effortless Provisioning and Management: Managing dedicated work numbers is as simple as handling email addresses. Numbers can be easily provisioned and managed, allowing for efficient communication workflows. Whether you’re a kindergarten teacher or a school board member, the process is user-friendly and
If you’d like to learn more about our SaaS solution, please schedule an intro call.