UCaaS for Education: Supporting Remote and Hybrid Learning Across K–12 and Higher Education

Today’s schools and universities are managing remote learning, coordinating across campuses, sending real-time updates to parents, and maintaining reliable communication during emergencies.

But most are still working with outdated phone systems and segregated apps. This often leads to lost instructional time, overwhelmed staff, families left uninformed, and little room for error in high-stakes situations.

UCaaS provides a better option for remote education, but only when it’s built for the way schools and campuses actually operate. It must support daily teaching, campus-wide coordination, and both in-person and remote workflows without adding complexity.

This article explores how K–12 and higher education institutions use Sangoma’s flexible UCaaS platform to stay connected, scale with confidence, and keep communication running smoothly, even when everything else is in motion.

Why Remote and Hybrid Education Needs Unified Communications

The increasing trend of remote and hybrid education models has exposed the weaknesses of traditional school communication systems. Phone trees, scattered emails, and siloed messaging tools no longer meet the demands of the academic environment. Students enrolled in remote and online learning, as well as parents and staff require real-time communication across multiple channels.

K–12 schools and higher education institutions may differ in structure and complexity, but they share a core challenge: fragmented systems that create confusion and delay. Teachers may be left guessing who’s available to help. Parents miss important updates. IT teams struggle to manage multiple tools with overlapping features.

UCaaS addresses these gaps by consolidating voice, video, messaging, and availability into one system that works from anywhere. Sangoma’s platform for education gives schools and universities the flexibility to support remote learning without piling on more tools or complexity.

UCaaS Capabilities That Make Remote Learning Work

Remote learning depends on more than live video. Schools need a system that supports real-time communication, coordination, and responsiveness—from anywhere.

Sangoma UCaaS for education supports that with:

• Browser-based softphones and VoIP
  Staff can place and receive calls securely from any connected device.
• Sangoma Meet for live instruction and support
  Teachers run virtual classrooms, one-on-one sessions, or group meetings with built-in scheduling and screen sharing. No plugins, no extra apps.
• TeamHub for internal collaboration
  Messaging, file sharing, and planning all happen in one place and are used by admin teams, support staff, and faculty groups across locations.
• Cloud-managed paging and IVR
  Announcements, menu updates, and routing changes can be made remotely.
• Integrated SMS and visual voicemail
  Parents get timely alerts (closures, schedule changes). Teachers retrieve voicemails via email, keeping flexible schedules from becoming communication gaps.

Everything is managed through a centralized web portal with role-based access controls. IT teams don’t need to be on-site to keep things running. With Sangoma’s reliability and support, schools and universities can depend on a communication system that stays up even when everyone’s working remotely.

Read more: Unified Communications in Education

K–12 Communications in Practice: Keeping Families and Faculty Connected

In K–12 environments, communication is often more immediate and personal. Parents want to know when their child is absent. Teachers need to collaborate with colleagues. Administrators must be able to reach families during emergencies or unexpected schedule changes.

Sangoma UCaaS for schools supports these scenarios with tools that mirror the pace and needs of a busy school. On snow days, administrators can send out SMS alerts to all parents and staff with a few clicks. Teachers running hybrid classrooms use voicemail-to-email to stay updated on parent concerns, even while teaching from home. At the grade level, shared extensions make it easy for teaching teams to coordinate without relying on back-and-forth emails.

Schools in rural or underserved areas benefit from Sangoma’s hybrid deployment model. When the internet cuts out, communication continues through a 4G or 5G failover connection. For districts that prefer on-premise setups, a hybrid unified communications option offers the best of both worlds: cloud features with local resilience.

School administrators working remotely can still reroute incoming calls, update auto-attendants, or make campus-wide announcements through the paging system. It’s a modern solution tailored to the dynamic environment of K–12 education.

Higher Education Use Cases: Supporting Scale, Research, and Distributed Teams

Universities and colleges face a different scale of complexity in modern communication. They manage multiple campuses, operate decentralized departments, and often support remote faculty, staff, and students spread across the country or even the globe. With Sangoma, higher education institutions bring these pieces together into a single, secure communication system.

A university registrar’s office, for example, might use integrated UCaaS tools to manage helpdesk support with a seamless blend of voice, chat, and CRM integration. Faculty holding virtual office hours can rely on Sangoma Meet for secure, high-quality video sessions. Department heads coordinate projects using TeamHub to message and share resources across campuses.

Research labs or facilities with critical operations benefit from failover protections that maintain voice services and internal routing, even during a network outage. Paging and IVR systems can broadcast updates about campus events or emergencies. If a serious situation occurs, the system’s Enhanced 911 (E911) support ensures emergency responders receive precise location data from the caller, helping institutions stay compliant with safety regulations while protecting students and staff. 

Sangoma UCaaS gives universities the flexibility and reliability they need to support academic operations at scale.

Beyond the Classroom: Non-Instructional Remote Operations That Rely on UCaaS

Education isn’t limited to what happens in a classroom. Non-instructional teams—admin, IT, student support—are essential to keeping school operations functional and responsive. Sangoma enables them to work efficiently, even when working remotely.

Front office staff

• Route incoming calls from home
• Check voicemail
• View colleague availability and transfer calls accordingly

HR and finance

• Use centralized controls to manage departmental comms securely
• Update auto-attendants and routing without IT support

IT teams

• Remotely manage users, call trees, and device provisioning
• Push updates or troubleshoot systems off-site

Academic advisors and counselors

• Run private video sessions using Sangoma Meet
• Share documents and maintain follow-up threads through TeamHub

Student support services

• Handle daily coordination through TeamHub: chat, shared files, voice integration
• Collaborate across departments even when distributed

Crisis response and emergency comms

• Use cloud paging and SMS to deliver urgent alerts
• Reach staff, students, and parents instantly, on or off campus

Why Schools and Universities Choose Sangoma UCaaS for Remote Learning

Sangoma UCaaS is trusted by school districts and higher education institutions across North America because it delivers results in the real world and not just on paper. The platform supports both cloud and hybrid deployments, giving IT teams flexibility in how they set up and manage communication systems.

Unlike vendors that piece together tools from third parties, Sangoma builds key applications like Sangoma Meet and TeamHub in-house. This integration leads to smoother performance, fewer compatibility issues, and a simpler user experience across the board.

Learn more about the Top UCaaS Vendors.

Districts such as Becker School and Holy Cross Catholic Multi-Academy have adopted Sangoma for its compatibility with existing hardware, intuitive remote administration, and education-specific support. Whether a school needs to retain legacy desk phones or enable full cloud functionality, Sangoma delivers without requiring a complete infrastructure overhaul.

With onboarding assistance, 24/7 customer support, and training tailored to school environments, institutions quickly get up and running. With real savings from license consolidation, reduced hardware investments, and fewer vendor contracts, it’s a smart choice for budget-conscious IT leaders.

Looking to simplify and strengthen communication at your school or university? Sangoma UCaaS gives you the flexibility, reliability, and control to support modern learning environments across any device, department, or deployment model.

Get in touch to see how Sangoma can support your school’s communication needs.