Telephones Ring during Emergency System Test
Parents and guardians received a holiday greeting from Superintendent Alexis Tibbetts this afternoon, as part of a district-wide test of the new emergency contact system. The pre-recorded voice call system contacts parents and guardians at home and/or work with important messages about school closings or emergencies. It is even designed to call back if there is no answer and logs a record of each phone call.
"The key benefit to us is that this allows us to contact every parent in the district quickly and easily," said Jerry Sansom, Coordinator of Safe Schools, Health and Athletics. "If schools have to close due to a hurricane or storm, we can communicate that to parents. We can also contact the parents of an individual school, if there is an accident on Highway 98 and buses are delayed, for example."
The school district was awarded a state grant that fully covered the costs of the emergency service, said Sansom. "I think parents and taxpayers will be glad to know that the schools do not need to purchase any additional equipment to make it work and it doesn't tie up phone lines at the schools."
Some schools decided to purchase additional services from the provider, Connect-Ed. They have the option of contacting parents about upcoming events, school closing times and their child's absences from school. Schools can set up a variety of different contact groups - by grade level, extracurricular activity or any other criteria - and the system will phone only those parents involved.
"We used it to notify parents of our Fall Carnival in November," said Shalimar Elementary School Principal Sheila Lightbourne, whose PTO purchased the full-service option. "I think it's an outstanding way to get hold of parents in case of an emergency."
The system tracks each call, noting whether it was successful, there was no answer or the number was disconnected. "We only had 18 bad numbers out of the 474 we called," said Lightbourne.
Florosa Principal Carolyn Lulue has high praise for the system. Last year, on the first day of school, her buses were stuck in traffic for hours due to a major accident on Highway 98. The three phone lines for the school were insufficient to handle all the calls to and from worried parents, the Sheriff's Department and transportation officials. "You couldn't get in or out," she recounted. "By the time we notified the parents, we would get an update and have to call them back again. In an emergency like that, we'll now be able to send out updates every 30 minutes if we have to. We can let parents know where the buses are stranded and whether or not they can come and pick up their child."
Another feature of the emergency contact system is that it allows principals to call in a message from anywhere, even a cell phone. "There's been a time when the power lines and phone systems went down and the only way to call out was on my cell phone. Now, all I'll have to do is make one call and all the parents will be notified," said Lulue.
Florosa recently began using the system to notify parents when their child is absent from school. "I think it makes an impression on parents that we are monitoring the absences," added Lulue.
Dexter Day, Assistant Principal of Crestview High School, is equally enthusiastic about the service. "It's an unbelievable tool for communicating with parents. It calls everybody in about two minutes. I use it to notify parents about Saturday school. It saves me a ton of time. I also get a receipt message for every call, which tells me the exact time the message was received and if it went to an answering machine. I tell the students: 'If you erase the message, you'll have to deal with Mom and Dad.'"