The City of Crawfordsville is a rapidly growing suburb of Indianapolis, IN. Nestled within the suburb, Crawfordsville Community School Corporation is home to more than 2,500 students across six school facilities. To protect the safety of students, teachers and staff, Crawfordsville Community School Corporation has developed a comprehensive and effective school safety procedure to uphold its obligation to communicate with students, teachers, and staff in a quick and efficient manner.
From daily announcements to threat responses, Crawfordsville Community School Corporation understood the need for reliable and cost-effective intercom systems to keep administration, staff, and community members connected. Indiana-based systems integrator Fairchild Communications designed and integrated an intercom system at Hoover Elementary and Nicholson Elementary.
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After considering a wide range of options, Crawfordsville Community Schools Corporation and FCS selected Nyquist from Bogen Communications. Nyquist's operational reliability and technological capabilities kept the district’s facilities secure and informed. The project, which initially began at Hoover and Nicholson Elementary Schools, required FCS to eliminate a legacy system and integrate Bogen Communications Nyquist E7000. With only one day of downtime, FCS had the new intercom system operating efficiently for Hoover and Nicholson Elementary.
“It was fairly effortless,” said Doug Lengerich, technology director for Crawfordsville Community Schools Corporation. “The integrator knew what they were doing, and it went smoothly.”
Crawfordsville Community School Corporation ultimately elected to increase the original project scope from two to four school facilities, including Crawfordsville High School and Hose Elementary School. Harnessing existing speaker cabling, Nyquist updated the schools’ respective paging and intercom system without extensive downtime and costly retrofitting, while putting in place a solution for both long-term reliability and ease of use.
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Bogen Communications Nyquist delivers simplified configuration and control for bell/event schedules. A web-based user interface enables bell schedules to be controlled across the entire district from a single user interface. Routines, dynamic, scripted automated action sequences within Nyquist, can support crisis plans for emergencies, such as school lockdowns, severe weather events, or emergency evacuations.
“The school appreciates that with their permission, we can remotely access their systems for diagnostics and programming,” said Matthew Ranft, director of sales and marketing at FCS. “One of the main features the school principals and administrators were excited about was the simple way to adjust the bell schedule based on school schedule, to choose different bell schedules or even have them preprogramed.
“We had not originally planned to provide inputs into some of the sound systems in the existing large group areas, like the gymnasium. With the flexibility of Bogen Communications, we could provide additional inputs to allow emergency calls or tones to be heard even during loud events, adding yet another level of safety for our students and faculty. Bogen Communications provided enhancements to our technology, with minimal disruption to the schools, and the ability to use most of their existing infrastructure.”
“Bogen gave us the new tech we were looking for,” Lengerich said. “We have a bit more security there, knowing we have a reliable system in place.”
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The initial installation at Hoover and Nicholson Schools was Crawfordsville Community School Corporation’s first time utilizing Bogen Communications. Now, after establishing the necessary foundation for effective campus-wide communication, Crawfordsville Community School Corporation is planning to install Bogen Communications’ Nyquist E7000 platform across all primary, intermediate, and secondary schools in the Crawfordsville Community district.
