Overview
The Morton Independent School District is located in West Texas, offering K-12 education to approximately 500 kids and teenagers. The students, 55 staff members, 15 administrators and the rest of the community work together with Morton ISD towards a safe environment in which all pupils can meet specific requirements of citizenship, leadership and accountability. The mental, physical, social and moral growth of its students is Morton ISD's main concern and constitutes their most important goal. Safety and efficiency are therefore crucial when it comes to faculty / staff communication, allowing the school to be productive and not spend too much valuable time on some issues.
Incorporating IM
Having control over communications is an opportunity to improve the internal and external development of any institution. However, due to the massive growth that instant messaging (IM) is undergoing, schools are the most vulnerable and unprotected when it comes to risks found on main public IM networks such as MSN Messenger, AIM/ICQ and Yahoo! Messenger. Therefore, real-time communication provided by an interoperable instant messaging private network such as Instan-t became an essential necessity for the Morton ISD.
According to Michael Jeffers, Director of Technology at Morton ISD, "it's important to supervise the children and occasionally, things will arise that need to be taken care of". Especially considering the risks children and teenagers face today, faculty members and administrators needed to be able to communicate in real-time whenever problems come up, without leaving any of the students unattended.
Of course, a private IM solution would also help keep all employees in check. As Jeffers describes, "you don't want to worry about faculty/staff and/or administrators talking with friends and/or relatives all the time, distracting them from their number one job of educating our youth".
Solution
"Having a private IM has fulfilled every expectation that I had" Jeffers declares. Morton ISD's customized Instan-t Enterprise solution has significantly increased communication and relationships between faculty/staff and administrators, allowing more informed decisions to be made.
Morton ISD has been deploying Instan-t to all teachers and administrators, using it for phone messages and questions requiring quick responses, as well as to inform administrators of problems in classrooms and without ever having to leave the students alone. Interactive Networks Inc. was also "very prompt and knowledgeable about their product and showed us the easiest way to integrate it seamlessly with our network" Jeffers recalls.
Consequently, Morton ISD is now discussing the idea of implementing a new customized Instan-t solution for their students, therefore expanding their network. This would let their pupils fully enjoy the benefits of IM without having to worry the school about risks, safety breaches, distractions and potential predators - something that is currently only dealt with by forbidding all IM use.
