Smarter than cell phones for work
A couple of years ago, the Director of Technology for the Farmington Public Schools needed to find a way to ensure all teachers were equipped with a dedicated work line. He also needed to cut costs. He decided to get rid of expensive corporate phones and replace it with a bring-your-own-device model using an app called MultiLine, which adds a dedicated business line to any smartphone. Corporate phones for a district of his size would have cost around $25,000 per month. He was able to cut that to a small fraction of the previous cost by using a BYOD system and still enable texting for teachers. More importantly, he protected his district and enabled his teachers to best serve their students.
Why do teachers need dedicated business numbers?
The conflation of work and personal can provoke issues in any profession, but it can cause legal problems very quickly in the sphere of education. If school districts do not provide teachers with approved channels which that they can use to communicate with parents, students, and each other, then teachers will have no recourse or support when parents and teachers inevitably ask for a way to communicate besides email. “What if my kid needs epinephrine now? Email just is not going to cut it.”
Obviously, teachers must always be mindful of keeping a professional boundary with students, and using a personal number can blur that boundary even if the teacher is texting the parents about relevant and scholastic subject matter. It’s not what was said, it’s where it was said. That’s why districts need to provide approved channels.
Further, texting from their personal phone in any capacity can place teacher’s personal cell phone privacy at risk as soon as one accusation is made. Any text sent to a student is subject to public records law in the state of Florida, for example. That teacher would have to hand over their personal phones.
With MultiLine, all texts and calls can be recorded automatically and visible in a central management portal, so there would never be a situation in which a teacher is asked to provide visibility into their own life. Again, what is said doesn’t matter if it’s said in the wrong place.
Teachers are heroes
Teachers are heroes. MultiLine is an easy, safe way to elimiante liability risk while connecting teachers to the community they serve. As Movius provides essential security for highly sensitive communication in the financial, healthcare, and legal professions, the ever-pressured educational community can equally benefit from Movius’ innovative technology.
MultiLine ports a dedicated business line to the personal phone of employees so that they can call, SMS, or even WhatsApp so that the phone is concurrently running two separate carrier-grade lines. All work communication is captured and recorded to protect the employees. All personal communication remains completely private and separate from the app. You can read more about the privacy policy. Further, MultiLine offers a Business Hours feature that can send work calls straight to voicemail outside of work hours–because teachers absolutely need downtime.
When a team member downloads the Movius app to their current smartphone, the Administrators with access to the management portal will assign a separate, dedicated work phone number. If they leave the team, the Administrators simply reassign that phone number to a new team member. Watch a MultiLine Demo.
The district can reduce liability and cost
MultiLine is an affordable alternative for district cell phones that does not require any device investment. That alone is a potential savings of thousands of dollars.
Further, Movius’ AI technology secures and archives all business communication and data, which increases operational efficiency and reduces legal exposure. No more he-said she-said nonsense for internal or external communication. The application can be used on computer, laptop, or phone eliminating the need to acquire additional, specialized software. MultiLine also directly integrates into Microsoft Teams, turning the regular Teams app into an external calling and messaging tool.
