In an effort to improve communication between the school and parents, the Houston R-I School District is implementing a telephone broadcast system. This calling system will enable the district to provide immediate contact in emergency situations, as well as for a variety of other useful reasons. Snow days, early dismissals and other announcements will be communicated directly to parents. SchoolReach, a company specializing in school-to-parent communications, will be providing this service. Houston R-I will continue to report school closings to radio and televisions stations as it always has.
The calling system allows district administrators to record a message and have that message delivered simultaneously to all parents in the district. Messages can also be targeted toward more specified groups. For example, if the fourth grade class had a field trip upcoming, a message explaining the details of the trip could be sent exclusively to the parents of fourth grade students, a coach could cancel a practice or a teacher could let parents know that their child has a big test tomorrow.
SchoolReach’s system interacts with the district’s student data system. The system securely accesses home phone numbers when a message is being sent out. As long as either a person or an answering machine of any kind answers the phone, the message will be played. If a phone is not answered, the system will attempt to call back up to twice at 15-minute intervals. Anyone wishing to receive announcements on a phone other than their home number will need to contact the office of the building your child attends. It is also important that parents whose phone contact information is not current contact the school to update your number.
It is anticipated that in addition to markedly improving the flow of information from the school, the SchoolReach calling system will actually pay for itself through savings on postage and paper.