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Sending SchoolReach Notifications During Hurricaine Katrina Teaches Best Practices.
Snapshot Overview
With many of its' schools recovering from Hurricane Katrina three years ago, the Archdiocese of New Orleans found itself facing another storm, Hurricane Gustav.
"We learned during Katrina that communication is almost impossible while evacuating during an emergency, " said Dr. Lisa Taylor, Assistant Superintendent of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. "Without electricity you couldn't watch the news or check a website. We had to communicate mostly through phone calls."
With the lesson learned from Katrina still fresh in their mind, the Archdiocese knew they needed to look for certain things when choosing a communication system. The system needed to be extremely fast, simple to use and it needed to operate without electricity or any costly computer equipment, software or phone lines. A comprehensive solution was needed to address the situation so the Archdiocese of New Orleans turned to SchoolReach.
Contact Strategy
The archdiocese of New Orleans was unique in the aftermath of Katrina. Many parents were spread out across the region, people still lived in FEMA trailers and schools were just regaining their populations. As the threat of Gustav Loomed, Sister Kathleen, the Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, knew that a proactive decision to close schools was best for the community.
The Friday before the storm, Sister Kathleen, the Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, knew that a proactive decision to close schools was best for the community.
The Friday before the storm, Sister Kathleen made the decision to cancel school for the following week, during the storm's projected impact. She recorded a brief message and sent it to all 86 principals in the region. More than half of the diocese schools also used SchoolReach and sent messages to their parents regarding their school's cancellations.
By Sunday morning, the entire region received a mandatory evacuation order. As the community scattered to higher ground, Sister Kathleen sent daily updates to her principals via her cell phone. Because SchoolReach sends messages to cell phones, diocese principals were able to receive important information regardless of where they were.
After the storm settled down, Sister Kathleen was able to gauge the damage and determine an appropriate date to restart school. After receiving a final message from Sister Kathleen via SchoolReach, the entire community returned to school the week after the hurricane and luckily damage was minimal.
Successful Results
SchoolReach streamlined communications and made contacting administrators and parents simple, quick and reliable. School principals were especially pleased with the immediacy of communication.
"One of the principals called me after the weather settled down and raved about the system," said Taylor. "It was so nice to have news coming directly from the superintendent to everyones cell. It was flawless."