Rockville Center School District

Country: United States Of America
Industry: Education
Solution: Digital Age Communications

Rockville Centre School District (RVC) is widely recognized as one of the top performing school districts in the state of New York and the country. With seven K-12 schools serving approximately 3500 students and an 11-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio, RVC has focused on technology to ignite their students’ passion for learning.

We not only teach with technology, we teach technology. With ALE we assure that when the networks run smooth, learning runs smooth.

Mike Anderson, Director of Technology

Challenges

Schools are often faced with budget challenges and with hard decisions on where to invest. RVC continues to lean on technology investment to provide an enhanced, safe and secure learning environment. RVC created a 1:1 tablet program with a reliable Wi-Fi network of over 300 access points across the district. Leveraging the performance of Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch network, they created VLANs for the security camera traffic minimizing disruption of routine traffic dedicated to teaching and communications. An unmatched safety and alert ecosystem is supported via the network design and integration of ALE switches with Milestone video monitoring system, Axis security cameras, Rave safety response solutions and Gallagher door access, along with Alcatel-Lucent Visual Notification Assistant (VNA) mass notification solution.

RVC leveraged the existing Alcatel-Lucent PBX system to integrate IP phones and softphones, with existing digital handsets across the high school and classrooms, enabling more accessible communication across campus.

Results

What made the difference?

Total cost of ownership, feature set and capabilities were paramount for RCV in the decision to select Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. RVC sought out a high performance and highly reliable networking experience at a minimal cost, and as a bonus was able to leverage the synergy of the LAN/WLAN and the features of the communications system all from one vendor.

Technical Benefits

Create VLAN via OmniSwitch to contain, manage bandwidth heavy security camera traffic
Visual Notification Assistant is a key to next steps of the safety and secure ecosystem
OmniVista solution also provides automated features, making network management easier

Financial Benefits

Total cost of ownership, longevity of solution are benefits to RVC’s investment in ALE
Hybrid phone system provided flexibility of cost to add phones only where needed, and implement soft-phone over the WLAN

User Experience Benefits

1:1 program, RVC can extend the school day for students, allowing them to log in from home, access the internal network, submit homework, and message teachers
Technology enables detection of bullying and gun shots in addition to smoke/vaping
Integration of VNA with Gallagher door access is ideal to enable lock down when needed