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SchoolReach provides parents early notice
By CHRIS WALLER
The Fulton Sun
KINGDOM CITY, Mo. - In the past, parents were forced to wake up early in order to watch a scrolling message at the bottom of their television screen to find out if school was canceled.
If the weather causes school closings this week, parents in the North Callaway School District and the Missouri School for the Deaf will receive a call from their child's principal letting them know.
The Missouri School for the Deaf and North Callaway made the decision to enable the SchoolReach system into their schools, allowing school administrators to alert all parents of school closings and other pertinent information by recording a message in their own voice, and then distributing the message.
Auxvasse Elementary principal Doyle Swiney said that the system is extremely effective.
"SchoolReach will give us a very easy way of contacting parents in case of an emergency, inclement weather, early releases and that sort of thing," Swiney said. "All we have to do if we want to contact (parents) is we give them (SchoolReach) a file with the numbers that we want to call, then we record the message and within 5 to 10 minutes they call them."
He also said the system used a very small portion of the district's budget.
"The system costs about $3,000 for the whole district, for what we are getting it is a good price and well worth the money."
North Callaway R-I High School Vice Principal Mike Spirz, who helped research and implement SchoolReach, said the system offers a simple solution to the problem of alerting parents and staff.
"With as many staff members and students that we have in our district, we thought there must be an easier way to get the same message to a large group of people at the same time," Spirz said.
The system is geared toward notifying parents of school closings during bad weather, but it also has several other uses. Up to 99 separate files of numbers can be created and used in individualized situations.
"It is a very flexible system, it's something we have for uses other than inclement weather," Spirz said. "For instance, we can set up a list for all the members of the basketball team, and if the game goes into overtime we can call the parents of only that group and let them know."
Swiney said the program was also very useful for parents with children who ride the bus.
"If we get a call that a bus is broken down and going to be late, we can call every number on a particular bus route and notify them," he said.
SchoolReach services will begin this week, and according to Swiney, the system has been tested and works with no problems.
"We had our practice calls the week before last, first for teachers and staff, and then the trial call for the parents," Swiney said. "We made note of parents that had wrong numbers or didn't receive a call and fixed it, so we are fully operational now."
SchoolReach has been in use in Fulton public schools since November, and has received a lot of positive response.