Phone Systems for Schools

At 7:40 the front office has the attendance line full of absences, a parent at the window signing out a child for the orthodontist, a teacher on the intercom asking for the nurse, and the bus company holding on line two. At 7:55 someone has to ring the bell. On a snow morning, all of that happens while somebody tries to change the greeting from their kitchen.

Cannon VoIP puts the school's phones, paging and bells on one system. Absences go to a shared attendance box with written transcripts, class-change bells run on a schedule, an overhead page can be typed in the portal, and one click switches every number to Snow Day. Flat $34 per extension, month to month, with texting and transcription included and no regulatory fees.

The front office is the switchboard, the PA and the bell

School calls are lopsided. Most of the day's volume lands in the first hour: absences, late arrivals, early pickups, bus questions. Most of the rest is parents trying to reach a teacher who is, correctly, teaching. A system that rings classroom phones during instruction fails one way, and a system that sends every call to the front desk fails the other.

Then there are the moments that matter more than any call: a tornado warning during lunch, a medical emergency in the gym, a parent who needs to reach a child's teacher right now. Who knows that someone dialed 911, how fast an announcement reaches every wing, and whether the old PA still works are the questions administrators actually worry about.

What we set up for schools

Why schools switch to Cannon VoIP

Flat $34 per extension, month to month, with texting and transcription included and no regulatory fees. Schools budget by the year and want to know the number, and this one doesn't move. Volume discounts start automatically at 25 extensions, which a campus with classroom phones reaches quickly.

Paging and bells run on the same desk phones, so a new wing the old PA never reached, or a portable building with no speaker at all, still hears announcements. Front office staff change the bell schedule or send a page from the portal, without calling a technician.

The school's main number, printed on every enrollment packet, ports for $15 per line, usually next business day, with about two minutes of downtime. Within about an hour and a half of DFW Airport, on-site installation is free, and many schools choose to switch over a break. Schools elsewhere get preconfigured phones shipped, and we support them nationwide.

What a typical setup looks like

A typical school runs extensions for the front office, attendance, principal, counselor, business office and nurse, plus a desk phone in each classroom, at $34 per extension. The main menu offers attendance, transportation, the business office and a staff directory, and callers can dial any extension directly.

Classroom phones sit in paging groups by wing, bells follow the bell schedule, and the Weather page watches the campus. After hours and on breaks, the holiday calendar plays the closed message on its own, and Snow Day is one click from the principal's phone, since the portal works in a phone's browser.

Common questions from schools