Technology allows schools to call thousands of parents simultaneously

The days of calling-trees and notes home in backpacks as the major means of school communication may be numbered.

St. Louis area schools are increasingly using
technology that allows them to contact thousands of parents in minutes.

Now, all an administrator has to do is record a voice message, click a button, and that message can be broadcast to thousands of parents simultaneously on cell, home and work phones. Administrators can even send text messages.

Kathy Reznikov, director of communications for the Ladue School District, said that her district had started using the technology this month and that parents were thrilled.

"So far the response from our parents has
overwhelmingly been very positive," Reznikov said.

In Illinois, O'Fallon Township High School started
using a similar system this school year, but only to notify staff in emergency situations such as recent storms. Gayle Appel, director of instruction, said the high school hoped to expand the program to students.

"It's really a great way to get the information out,"
Appel said. "It allows us to be a little more efficient with our time."

Jim Joyce, communications director in the Francis Howell School District in St. Charles County, said that district's School Board was expected to discuss at its meeting today bids for a parent notification service. It would be the first in the county to use such a system district-wide.

Joyce said the district had already improved
communication by sending e-mail to parents. But not all parents have immediate access to a computer, he said, and this system would allow schools to reach parents in an emergency.

"It's about speed and accuracy," Joyce said. "This will give us another layer of communication to reach parents as quickly as possible if there is a need."

Schools are using the new technology for two
purposes. The first is emergency contact. If bad
weather closes school or an emergency -- such as a fire or intruder -- arises, parents can be notified immediately. The information also can be tailored to a tighter audience, such as all the students on one bus route if a bus breaks down.

The second purpose is letting parents know about important events such as parent-teacher conferences, report cards' being sent home or meetings. Services also can offer a way for schools to track whether parents are
listening to the entire phone message or hanging up early.

Paul Langhorst, co-founder and vice president of
GroupCast, a company based in Fenton that markets a service called SchoolReach, said his company's system could send more than 200,000 calls an hour. "A typical district or school would have all of its parents called within minutes," he said.

Langhorst said the immediacy also eliminated
problems with phone chains, which take longer and
sometimes cause the message to change as it is passed down the line. "With a system like this, the same message is delivered to everybody at the same time," he said.

SchoolReach's first client was a Catholic school in Des Peres. Since then, the company has added a host of private and public schools in the St. Louis area, including Kirkwood, Mehlville, Valley Park and
Maplewood-Richmond Heights.

Vicki Conrad, sales manager for SchoolReach, said a majority of the Rockwood schools and several Parkway schools also used the service. Sometimes, parent-teacher organizations buy the service for the school. "Years ago, schools saw it as a luxury," Conrad said. "Now, with so much in the media with school violence across the country, it's become a necessity," she said.

By Shane Anthony

(Full article available at www.stltoday.com)
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, Jan. 18 2007