School district gets new phone system, phone number

In the system — which is expected to save $36,000 during the first year — one phone number, 737-4000, will serve all seven buildings in the district.

By John Tredrea
   A new telephone system for the Hopewell Valley Regional School District is expected to be ready for use at all district buildings by the end of next month.
   In the system — which is expected to save $36,000 during the first year — one phone number, 737-4000, will serve all seven buildings in the district.
   There are four elementary schools, a middle school and a high school in addition to the district’s administrative headquarters.
   Several district buildings — including the administrative headquarters and Stony Brook Elementary, a new school in Brandon Farms — already are in the new telephone system. The other buildings are expected to be on line by the end of February. When they are, the old phone system will go to the technological scrap heap in the sky.
   The old system was provided by Avaya Communications, according to John Hager, district technology director.
   Under the new system, all calls to the district will be made through the one central number, 737-4000. Callers who reach it will choose from recorded menus in order to reach the extension they wish to reach.
   Representatives of the firm Emtec Inc. which is installing the new phone system, summarized work to date and discussed the system during the school board’s Jan. 13 meeting.
   Superintendent Robert Sopko noted that factors driving the move to a new system include the age of old system, for which obtaining replacement parts has become increasingly difficult, and the old system’s cost. He noted that, in the old system, a phone call from the administrative headquarters to Toll Gate Grammar School, located two short blocks away, was a toll call in that the district logged billable message-units by making the call. This will not be the case under the new system. Emtec estimates it will cost the district $24,000 to run its new phone system during its first full year of use. The current system cost $60,000 during the 2001-2002 school fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30.
   School officials and Emtec say that, in addition to being cheaper, the new system will be faster, more efficient, and more in tune in modern security needs than the system it will replace.