As technology director of Colorado’s Steamboat Springs School District, Tim Miles carries a heavy load. In addition to ensuring that the devices the district’s 2,575 students use remain in top working order, he also has to ensure that critical infrastructure such as the data center stays up and running.
However, after recently bringing the Internet of Things (IoT) into the district for facilities management, he is breathing a lot easier.
He recalls the day that his newly installed Sensaphone sensors, which monitor for water leaks and track the air temperature, proved their value: “We had a water sensor go off in the data center, and we were able to stop it before it spread into an adjacent gymnasium, where it could have destroyed the wood floor.”
By alerting teams to water leaks or sudden temperature spikes, sensors ensure that the data center stays functioning, and that school facilities aren’t impacted by adverse events.
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Steamboat is not the only district that is leveraging sensors and connected controls to save money, streamline operations and meet its sustainability goals.
“Everything you can imagine is now connected in the more energy-efficient school districts,” says CoSN COO Robert Duke. In addition to driving energy efficiency in support of environmental goals, “there are potential cost savings. If schools can reduce their utility bills, then these controls will pay for themselves over time.”
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IoT Brings Power and Intelligence to Facilities Management
For school leaders such as Miles, the IoT is changing the game in K–12 education.
“The data center has uninterruptible power supplies in it, and they start to physically expand at 120 degrees. The battery swells, and you can’t get them out of the housing to replace them. With sensors, if the air conditioning isn’t working, we know right away, and it allows us to get in there and shut things down,” he says.
There are also gates that open automatically to admit fire trucks, and he’s using Molex Ethernet-connected lighting. He also says that Ethernet connectivity delivers both power and intelligence, making it easier and more cost-effective to deploy lighting solutions.
“You run the power and the smart tech over the same wire. My switch can push up to 90 watts per port, so if you have lights that only consume 5W, you can put a whole bunch of them in sequence on the single wire,” he explains. “It makes your lights extremely smart, and it eliminates a ton of metal since it removes all of that conduit work.”
$11 billion
The approximate value of the 2024 U.S. market for IoT technology in education
Source: Verified Market Research, “IoT in Education Market Valuation: 2024-2031,” May 2024
At Beaverton School District in Oregon, CIO Steven Langford has also gone deep into IoT technology. He’s using automated heating and cooling controls to manage the district’s building environments. He has also installed automated sensors on security cameras to trigger alerts.
“We use sensors extensively in our operations and facilities departments to support the work of keeping students safe and comfortable,” he says.
DISCOVER: Schools can increase security through the latest sensor technology.
Smart Building Controls Help Schools Save Time and Money
Districts have a range of options available when it comes to IoT devices. There are air quality sensors and vaping sensors, motion detectors, smart building controls, and smart access controls. Districts that have deployed such devices report a range of benefits.
Improved efficiency tops Langford’s list. “Automated sensors on our security cameras mean that fewer staffers need to check those feeds,” he says.
When it comes to heating and cooling, “we could employ a number of technicians to drive out to the buildings and make sure that the temperature controls are adequate, but we can do all that remotely,” he says. With IoT sensors and controls, system status “can be displayed in a dashboard or an application, so that people don’t need to physically go to a building to take care of an issue.”
In the Steamboat Springs School District, Miles sees bottom-line savings. “Lighting over Ethernet should save many millions of dollars in construction costs and future ongoing costs,” he says. Sensors that adjust lighting based on occupancy promise to drive costs further down. “If the sunlight is bringing in the light from the windows, the sensors will automatically dim the lights to maintain that brightness level without consuming as much power.”
Finally, the sensors and controls are helping schools to meet their sustainability goals.
“We have 54 very large buildings,” Langford says. “That places a lot of load on our utilities. When we are managing our facilities better, we’re not only saving money on those utility costs, we’re also reducing demand.”
How Schools Can Make the Most of IoT Technology
A number of best practices can help K–12 districts take advantage of the benefits IoT devices have to offer.
First, it’s important to address potential culture gaps, as a siloed approach can hinder IoT adoption. “In a lot of schools, there’s a traditional view: ‘That’s not my job, it’s facilities’,’” Miles says.
When it was time to upgrade the lighting, “the first person I convinced was the facilities director,” he recalls. By getting IT and facilities working together early on, it was easier to make the case for IoT and bring the solution to life.
It’s also important to remember that IoT devices are part of the overall technology ecosystem. They may operate out of sight, but they still need to be treated as IT assets.
“IoT devices need to be considered just like that computer that’s sitting on a teacher’s desk. In terms of the responsibility, we must maintain that connectivity and secure that device,” Langford says.
To that end, “IT teams need to be taking an inventory of their IoT devices and including them in their overall portfolio of devices, applications and networks that are managed by the school district,” he says. Proactive device management will help ensure IT teams can keep these IoT endpoints operating at their peak.
Overall, a thoughtful implementation of IoT promises to deliver several advantages. Sensors and controls will ease the burden on stretched-thin IT and facilities teams, while automated management of things such as lighting and heating and cooling will drive down costs and support school districts as they look to meet their environmental sustainability goals.
