Actionable Insights from Schools that Saved Thousands of Dollars

When evaluating your school’s PA system, here are insights from 6 schools across the country that saved thousands of dollars.

3 Key Areas to Consider

1. Repair or Replace your school PA system?
2. Lower up-front costs
3. Reduce monthly recurring fees

1. Repair or Replace your School PA system?

When considering your options when it comes to repairing or replacing your school’s PA and Intercom system here’s what three other schools did:

• Trinity Christian Academy (Florida) made small repairs for years to their school PA system and eventually reached a state where repairing the old analog wiring would cost more than a new digital PA system.
• Schleicher County ISD (Texas) found that parts for their 40-year-old analog PA system were so obsolete that they had to buy used parts from other schools. By applying for government funds earmarked for school safety, they were able to install a brand new all-digital system, Carina.
• When lightning destroyed Strawn ISD’s old analog PA system, they chose a more robust all-digital PA system, Carina.

2. Lower Up-front Costs

(without sacrificing quality)

While a complete replacement of your school’s PA system may seem daunting at first, these schools found innovative ways to significantly cut their costs.

Reduce the Amount of Cabling / Home Runs

In a typical PA system installation, each classroom requires an Ethernet cable run (or home run) to the server room. Each home run costs hundreds of dollars per classroom to install. Wahsega’s wiring reduction technology only requires one home run for every 2 classrooms, saving schools up to 50% in installation costs. This is accomplished with a “daisy chain” from Classroom A to Classroom B, eliminating the home run from Classroom B to the server room.

Caddo Parish Schools (Louisiana) used Wahsega’s writing reduction technology to double the number of schools they upgraded every year.

Reduce the Number of PoE Port Switches

If you’re using Wahsega’s exclusive wiring reduction technology (described in the previous section), you’ll notice that the number of PoE ports you’ll need will be reduced at the same rate.

Max Savings: West Jefferson School District (Pennsylvania) saved 90% off their cabling costs because their school was already wired with Cat5e in every classroom.

3. Reduce Monthly Recurring Fees

When reviewing quotes, always check monthly recurring charges. Most commonly, there are recurring charges for each VoIP phone line.

For A.W. Brown Leadership Academy (Texas), paying a monthly fee to have a VoIP phone line in every classroom was above their budget. Instead they opted for an inexpensive IP Call / Panic Button in every classroom with zero monthly recurring charges. With a quick press of the call button, teachers can call the front office. Additionally, the same call button can call the Security Resource Officer (SRO) by holding down the button for 3 seconds.

The One-Step Method to Saving Money on your School’s PA System

Wahsega helps schools save money by lowering upfront costs, recurring fees, and integrating more features. Carina, made by Wahsega, includes your PA system, intercom, bell scheduler and emergency notifications.

Carina: Complete School Communications System