When one of the 1,200 teachers in the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District near Dallas needs to make a phone call, he or she uses a wireless telephone supplied by the school district. Not long ago, for example, seven-year-old Tommy finally aced a spelling test, and he couldn’t wait to tell his father. His teacher gave him her wireless telephone, and he delivered the good news right away.

Another Grapevine-Colleyville teacher spends recess duty keeping an eye on students and telephoning parents — to say hello, offer a compliment about a child’s performance or discuss a problem.

“The system helps to make parents an integral part of their children’s education and more accountable for their school work,” says Chip Evans, principal of Heritage Middle School in the Grapevine-Colleyville district.

While no one has studied the numbers, suppliers of communication technologies say that more and more K-12 schools are opting for modern communication systems that finally put teachers in the loop. The reasons range from creating better connections between teachers and parents to ensuring the ability to call for help in the event of an emergency.

Traditional office-to-classroom intercoms and one-way public address systems cannot satisfy today’s expanded communication needs, nor do these systems facilitate emergency calls for help. Even today’s ubiquitous cell phones can have drawbacks for schools. During an emergency, large numbers of cellular calls can cripple a cellular network, making it impossible for teachers or administrators to get through.

Three primary classroom communication technologies are helping schools address these problems today. They include two-way radios, cordless phones that combine telephone and radio communication capabilities and wireless telephones.

Two-way radios can provide relatively low-cost, swift emergency communications, says Paul Middleton, marketing manager with Kenwood USA’s communications division, a Georgia-based supplier of two-way radio systems.

Many schools, continues Middleton, started using two-way radios by purchasing $50 walkie-talkies made for consumers. These systems proved the value of radio communications to administrators managing support staffs, coaches managing teams and teachers managing students on field trips. When consumer systems proved limited in range and durability, most schools moved up to commercial radio systems.

Commercial radios provide more range than consumer walkie-talkies, while adding flexibility. For example, a multichannel radio system enables a school administrator to manage radio traffic by reserving separate channels for security personnel, the athletic department and teachers with classes roving through the media center, auditorium or elsewhere beyond the confines of assigned classrooms.

According to industry observers, multichannel two-way radios ranging from two to five watts will generally provide coverage sufficient for a large high school and cost from $200 to $500 per user.

Cordless telephones offer a more comprehensive communications technology for teachers. EnGenius Technologies, Inc., of Costa Mesa, Calif., manufactures an extended range cordless telephone with a two-way radio built into each handset.

With this type of system, teachers and other users receive a cordless telephone handset. Antenna or base stations, configured in a network throughout the school, connect to the building’s main PBX or key system. Since each antenna station accommodates up to nine handsets, cabling requirements are limited. Each handset comes with its own battery-recharging mount.

Carrying a handset, teachers can roam the school grounds and place calls through the school phone system from virtually anywhere. In an emergency, if the power goes off and shuts down the school PBX, the two-way radios in the EnGenius handsets enable users to call anyone else with a handset.

Depending upon the features, systems can cost from $400 to $600 per user.

SpectraLink Corporation of Boulder, Colo., offers two kinds of phones. An older solution resembles a cordless phone system and operates by sending signals through a network of base stations installed in the school. Called the Link Wireless Telephone System, the telephones in the system include two-way radios. The newer SpectraLink system, the NetLink Wireless Telephone, works through a wireless local area network (LAN).

The difference between cordless and wireless is important in this context. Cordless phones require the installation of a network of base or antenna stations. SpectraLink’s wireless system works with standard wireless networking access points, sometimes called hot spots.

“We play well with others,” says Michelle Greene, SpectraLink’s corporate communications manager. In other words, a school that has been wired with access points for wireless computers can use the same access points to connect SpectraLink’s wireless telephones. A relatively inexpensive box or two installed in the communications closet routes the telephone signals from the WiFi network to the school’s PBX.

According to Greene, the SpectraLink wireless solution costs approximately $400 to $600 per user, including the boxes required in the communications closet. If an access point network is required, it will add to the cost. Whatever the technical solution, the result is the key — teachers can do a better job of handling routine or emergency tasks if they are connected to the outside world. The right technology is making that possible.