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Macon Schools Use Parent Notification to Inform About Emergencies, Early Dismissals or Cancellations
The Tuskegee News
Jan 21, 2010
This year, 2010, kicks off the use of Macon County School System's new telephone broadcast system
that will enable school personnel to notify all households and parents by phone within minutes of an
emergency or unplanned event that causes early dismissal, school cancellation or late start.
In fact, you may have been surprised to recently receive a phone call from our new system informing
you about weather-related events.
This is one of our action steps to improve parental involvement and communication. The service may
also be used from time to time to communicate general announcements or reminders. This service is
provided by SchoolReach, a company specializing in school-to-parent communications.
When used, the service will simultaneously call all listed phone numbers in our parent contact list and
will deliver a recorded message. The service will deliver the message to both live answer and answering
machines. No answers and busy signals will be automatically retried twice in 15-minute intervals after
the initial call.
NOTE:
1) This requires NO registration by the parent on the SchoolReach website.
2) All information and contact numbers are strictly secure and confidential and are only used for the
purposes described herein.
Here is some specific information you should know:
-Caller ID: The Call ID will display either the school board's number 334-727-1600 or the number of
your child's school.
-Live Answers: There is a short pause at the beginning of the message, usually just a few seconds.
Answer your phone as you normally would; "hello" and hold for the message to begin. Multiple
"hello's" will delay the message. Inform all family members of this process who may answer your
phone.
-Answering Machines: The system will detect that your machine has answered and will play the
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recording to your machine. The maximum number of rings before hang-up is five. Make sure your
machine answers after four rings or you may miss the message.
-Morning and Day Calls: In the event a cancellation decision is made the night before, or in the early
morning hours, the broadcast message will be sent to home phone numbers only. In the event a
cancellation decision is made mid-day, the broadcast message will be sent to home and cellular
numbers.
General announcements would be sent only to home numbers. Please ensure that the school has your
current home, work, and cellar number on file. The system does give us a report of numbers that are not
good.
-Message Repeat: At the end of the message you will be prompted to 'press one' to hear the message
again. This is very helpful when a child answers the phone and hands it to a parent, who can then
'repeat' the message in its entirety.
-E-mails: If you have this option and if you supply the school with your email address, you can be
included in the email broadcasting service. The principal can then send a text message to you or even
attach a .wav file of the message sent home.
-Attendance: If your school is using SchoolReach for daily attendance, you will be notified each day
your child misses a required number of classes. To minimize these calls, make sure to inform the school
when you KNOW your child will miss classes on a given day.
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