Canterbury School

Overview

Campus Type: Private Day and Boarding School
Location: New Milford, CT
Enrollment: 325
Faculty members: 70
Campus Size: 150 acres
Residence halls: 7
Boarding Students: 70%

The Canterbury School is a college preparatory, coeducational private day and boarding school in New Milford, CT. The school enrolls 325 students annually in grades 9-12, employs 70 faculty members, and boards 70 percent of its students. We spoke with Matt Glaser, Director of Information Technology, to learn more about the Canterbury School’s experience with Alertus. Glaser has worked at the school for 24 years and plays a major role in enhancing and continually upgrading their mass notification systems.

Challenge

Before implementing Alertus in 2020, the Canterbury School worked with an older wireless technology system that was difficult to upgrade and maintain. “It was challenging to use and only one person could initiate any type of emergency or notification at a time,” said Glaser.

Solutions

Being network-based, the Alertus System made everything much more scalable and user-friendly. “Now, we have a website with quick links where we can initiate alerts, deploy new devices, and run tests. We can leave the system and come back to it in a few weeks and everything is working smoothly,” said Glaser.

“The Alertus System supports the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), a digital format for exchanging emergency alerts, so we were able to set up CAP notices to other systems we have that also support CAP, like our digital displays,” said Glaser. His team uses the Alertus Server, Desktop™ Notification, and has two Alert Beacons® and 40 IP Text-to-Speech Speakers installed across their facilities. They are currently in the midst of testing a new 30-watt IP Speaker outdoors. For Glaser, the IP Speakers were a huge selling point for Canterbury because they are “ridiculously easy to install.” He also uses the Activator App to initiate alerts quickly from his phone.

Glaser manages server upgrades himself, but when they deployed the IP Speakers, they set up profiles, and volume levels, and did significant hands-on testing with the Alertus Implementation Team. “Working with Alertus support has been great and we were up and running pretty quickly,” he said.

Glaser tests the Alertus System regularly and has activated the system for weather alerts. “We get some pretty wild weather around here!” said Glaser. “We send the initial alert to let people know an emergency is occurring, then we always follow up with text messages containing more detailed information. Once the situation ends, we go back to the Alertus System to issue an all-clear. So the Alertus alerts are used for immediate and intrusive notification alerting, and the follow-up text and email are used for post-unification and reverse evacuation information.” Glaser has pre-set alerts created in the Alertus System and may issue three or four alerts at a time depending on the severity of the situation. 

He initially heard about Alertus from a group of fellow IT directors in Connecticut; he found the system to be a good fit for Canterbury’s needs thanks to the ease of implementation and the network-based capabilities. Glaser noted that he didn't have to start running wires or change batteries, and could use technology that he already knows, easily plug in a new PoE device, or work on a new server. 

Going forward, Glaser plans to evaluate quiet spots to build on Text-to-Speech capabilities indoors and outdoors, increase CAP notifications, and roll out the activator app to a select few individuals on the administrative team.