With school budgets always stretched thin, it can be tough to find money for new expenses. But don't make the mistake of ignoring things that can pay for themselves. When it comes to communication tools for teachers, your district can't afford to skip a school messaging system.
Safety is Priceless
The Parkland shooting report cited multiple failures by staff members to react to warning signs and communicate to the rest of the school. The shooter was first seen on the outer perimeter of the school, and a faster response could have prevented him from getting inside. Instead, a lack of communication protocols and tools hindered an early response.
With Badge Messenger®, any staff member could have immediately triggered a lockdown with a couple of taps to their ID card. Just like reinforcing airplane cockpit doors after 9/11 virtually prevented future hijackings, this small improvement in communication can help prevent or contain future shooters.
App Costs
Once administrators decide to take a step like improving communication, they often seek to do it at the lowest cost. If you're looking at phone apps, you may think they provide a cost-effective alternative.
The problem with phone apps is that you can't ensure consistency and reliability when all of your teachers have different types of phones and different levels of technical sophistication. You may face software costs, additional costs from upsells or bundled products, and also the time your IT department spends supporting the app. Not to mention the cost of potential legality issues when it comes to your teaching staff using their personal cell phones for the security of the classroom.
Free Your Staff
How much time do your office secretaries spend communicating with classrooms each day? How much time do your teachers have to take away from teaching to call into the office or receive calls?
Even when your staff is on salary, their time is still valuable. Any time lost to inefficient communication could have been spent on teaching and planning. The cost of a full time classroom aid can be shared among many classrooms. The use of the badge helps the classroom aid be used more effective.
Keep Students in Class
Teachers also like to send students to deliver messages to other teachers or to the office. And students like to act as runners because they get to get out of class and go for a walk.
However, this means lost instructional time for those students even if it's a small amount. A dedicated school messaging system turns almost all of the common messages into a simple push button with a yes or no response virtually eliminating the need for anyone to leave the classroom or spend time on the phone.
Make Training More Effective
When you only have a limited number of training hours each year, you don't want to spend them trying to help your less technically-inclined teachers figure out an app. Badge Messenger uses large, intuitive buttons that make it as easy as calling an elevator.
Using such a simple system also makes it easier to develop emergency plans. In addition to making it easier to train teachers how to respond, it increases the likelihood they will remember what to do in an emergency.
Maintain Accountability
Administrators like to make sure that teachers have arrived for the day, are on task, and that everything is OK inside each classroom. But this can mean lots of time wasted walking around instead of on important administrative tasks or helping teachers become more effective.
Badge Messenger provides a simple way to check in with the push of the button to eliminate the mundane, routine tasks and let administrators put their time to best use. Our system retains data that can be used to analyze your school's use of resources, which can pinpoint short comings in staffing needs.
Watch this video to get a full look at the benefits of Badge Messenger:
