The Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO) is a statewide association, devoted to providing members with education, training, professional development and timely access to legislative and policy news.
PASBO's mission is to develop and support leaders in school business operations. Consistent with this mission The S4 Group sees the value in partnering with PASBO because school districts are ideal candidates for S4 integration projects. We know that school budgets are often limited, and facilities personnel are often unsung heroes who make the most out of what they have to work with. The S4 integration is a great option for school systems, and the flexibility of the product means that there are many ways schools can benefit from using our technology. The BACnet (or OPC) N2 Router can be installed to act as an onsite agent to collect data on energy usage, which can then be used to make better informed decisions on building upgrades, as one example. The S4 router has the unique ability to coexist with the legacy Metasys® head end, which can be very useful for upgrades taking place during the school year, so as not to disturb students and faculty during the integration. And finally, and perhaps most obviously, the S4 integration products allow schools to retain their existing HVAC investment while upgrading to BACnet on the head end. Multiple buildings within a campus system can be brought into a unified system for ease of use and management. Energy savings can be realized with modern scheduling capabilities. School systems can get all the benefits of a BAS upgrade, without all of the upfront costs. The rest of the upgrades can be done over a period of years, as time and budgets allow.
The S4 Group had a tabletop display in the exhibition and took the opportunity to meet with PASBO members, other exhibitors, sponsoring organizations, and conference attendees to spread the word on how our integrations products can help meet the growing needs of facilities managers in the Pennsylvania school system, and beyond. As a result of these discussions S4 is scheduled to do a value proposition presentation to the PASBO Facilities Committee early next year.
Thanks to Roger Stalvey of Just Controls for recommending that we attend this conference and assisting in staffing the display table.
For more information on this conference, go here http://www.pasbo.org/facconf
For general information on PASBO, please see www.pasbo.org