As kids go to school each day, wouldn’t it be reassuring for their parents to know that they arrived safely on campus or are on their way home? At the Lourdes School Quezon City (LSQC), a private Catholic educational institution run by Capuchin priests, parents can know for sure that their precious ones are where they want them to be.

In celebration of its 60th founding anniversary, Lourdes School Quezon City raised the bar in keeping up with the demands of time and security for its students by acquiring the benefits of modern technology thereby ensuring better and quality service Lourdesians. LSQC recently took the big leap by being one of the first schools to tap Gatekeeper, a Sun Business solution that tracks attendance, time logs and activity patterns of people and sends out SMS updates on their whereabouts.

Gatekeeper

Through Gatekeeper, a student is logged to have entered or exited the school once he or she passes through the school gates, or have tapped his or her radio-frequency identification (RFID)-enabled student ID card onto a reader positioned near the entrance. The system would then automatically send real-time updates to parents through text messages.

Safety and security

Rev. Fr. Antonio B. Ala II, OFM, former LSQC Rector, hailed the Sun Business solution for its indispensible role in assuring safety and security for students.

"Sun is the company that provides the kind of environment where parents would know that their children are already in school or have already tapped-out of the school to go home,” Fr. Ala said.  “The school wanted to take advantage of this modern technology because this, in a way, could further enhance or reinforce the security and safety measures the school is doing.  It will help the school monitor the timekeeping pattern and attendance of students and would allow parents and guardians to receive real time updates of students’ login via SMS.”

Leveraging on ICT

As such, LSQC is passionate on leveraging on ICT to benefit the school community.

“Lourdes has always been aggressive in terms of technology,” said Romeo de Castro Jr., LSQC IM-IT Center Coordinator. “So we keep ourselves updated with the latest in ICT.”

Prior to using Gatekeeper, LSQC utilized MessageCast, another Sun Business solution that broadcasts text messages to a great number of recipients with just one send.

“MessageCast was very helpful in informing parents about official school announcements, like upcoming activities or class suspensions,” added Mr. De Castro. 

LSQC had previously used a text blasting solution, which entails using a phone with a special SIM that allows group texting, from another provider. But the process, he said, became cumbersome as texting numerous announcements through a single phone’s messaging interface was slow and tedious and prone to human error.

Shift to MessageCast

This led to their shift to Sun Business MessageCast, which offers a simple and easy-to-use graphical computer interface for users to key in and broadcast messages.

“We didn’t need to spend so much time texting group messages. All we need to do is type the message on the application installed in our PCs and send right away to the parents.” MessageCast can also allow users to send messages to stored contacts with a defined sender’s name, instead of just a number, and to schedule when the message will be sent.

MessageCast is now embedded in the LSQC’s Gatekeeper system, offering both functionalities at no extra cost. “This gives us one strong, all-encompassing solution that will enhance our ties with the parents while assuring their children’s safety and well-being,” Mr. De Castro said.

Challenge

While these solutions had been helpful to the school community, integrating them to the existing processes had been a challenge.

“Much has been done to be able to integrate Message Cast and Gatekeeper in our school’s operations and processes.  First, because this is quite new to our operating system, we had the need to inform the teachers and other school personnel about what it is and how we intend to make use of it,” said Fr. Ala.

Despite this, the integration went smoothly.

“Guidelines were set by the school to help us efficiently implement it,” Fr. Ala noted.  “The effective dissemination of information to parents about the what and how of the system was also undertaken by the school.  Students, teachers and other school personnel were also informed of how we are going to implement it.”

Support

While there might be initial kinks since using Gatekeeper this school year, LSQC had nevertheless achieved its purpose, leaning on Sun Business to ensure the system is always up and running.

“Beyond any understandable problems we might encounter with this new system, we rely on the efficient and timely support we get from Sun,” Mr. De Castro said. “They are always there when we need them.”

Fr. Ala, meanwhile, expressed hope that Gatekeeper will be wholly ingrained in the Lourdes way.

“With all the preparations that we have done, I hope that we have done, everyone in  the community, students, parents, guardians and employees of LSQC would appreciate the value and importance of this system,” Fr. Ala said.

Sun Business is the corporate solutions arm of Sun Cellular, a member of PLDT SME Nation. For more information on the products and services of PLDT SME Nation, visit www.pldtsme-nation.com.ph.